A little early

On the occasion of President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the Dalai Lama showed himself to be the master of tactful understatement:

'I think if you are realistic, it may have been a little early but it doesn't matter, I know Obama is a very able person.'

The Tibetan leader also warned President Obama against relying too much on his advisers.

As the Dalai Lama hinted, the reason Obama didn't deserve the prize is that he hasn't done anything to earn it. He is being rewarded for his rhetoric or his promise or, as some have put it, "not being George Bush." But it's not fair, I think, to say he shouldn't have it just because he's a war president. Speaking of rhetoric, I though Obama handled that part of the controversy pretty well:

'And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict - filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.'

'I face the world as it is,' Obama said, refusing to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States.

'A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms,' Obama said.

'To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history.'

Both Bush and Obama will be judged by how things turn out in the Middle East, and we don't know that yet. Teddy Roosevelt won the peace prize for getting the Japanese and Russians to the table to end their war, mostly because he thought helping Japan would aid the Western cause. We celebrated the anniversary of something Monday that showed history didn't exactly turn that way.