When I opened my laptop last Friday and saw that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to Barack Obama, I thought I must have stumbled on some kind of satire site. Obama is many things: an inspiring orator, an intellectual titan, and a charismatic leader. But he is not yet Nobel Prize material.

I’ve spent the past few days trying to come up with a major humanitarian accomplishment to justify the award. To be sure, Obama’s done significant good. He’s taken important steps to repair America’s image around the globe. He’s ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed and shown himself much more willing to engage with the world than his predecessor. All in all, a respectable record for less than a year in office.

But the list of things he hasn’t done is much more telling. He hasn’t ended either of the two major wars in which this country is engaged. He hasn’t stopped the proliferation of nuclear weapons to dangerous and unpredictable regimes. He hasn’t stabilized or brought peace to the Middle East. He hasn’t provided health care for the millions of children in this country still under- or uninsured. He hasn’t launched a major initiative to halt the spread of the AIDS epidemic in Africa or to combat the hunger and malnutrition plaguing so much of the world. Those are the types of things that merit the Nobel Peace Prize.

Then I realized that the real reason Obama won the award was for being a president of the United States not named Bush. Over the past few years, the Nobel committee has made a number of questionable choices. Paul Krugman and Al Gore in particular seemed a bit odd. But they also were strong critics of the Bush administration and their award served as an indirect rebuke to Europe’s least favorite president.

By giving its most prestigious award to Obama, the Nobel committee made itself ridiculous and cheapened the value of its prize. While Barack Obama may well go on to do great things for the world, his accomplishments so far do not merit his inclusion in the pantheon of Nobel winners like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Theresa.

Nathaniel French is a junior theater studies major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].