Jubecron Forum

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize “as an affirmation of American leadership” after receiving the award just nine months into his term and without the record of achievement of past laureates.

“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures” who’ve won previously, Obama said in the White House Rose Garden today. “I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.”

None of the organizations or analysts that follow Nobel prizes predicted the 2009 award for Obama, who is the third sitting U.S. president to have won the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won in 2002 and former Vice President Al Gore received it in 2007.

In giving Obama the prize, Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the five-member Nobel committee, said Obama “created a new climate in international politics.”

The committee “in particular looked at Obama’s vision and work toward a world without atomic weapons,” Jagland said.

In his speech, the president said that much of work he is trying to undertake, such as ridding the world of nuclear weapons, is unlikely to be completed before he leaves office.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSPIBVj3JZvk

source: bloomberg.com