Nobel timeline: How Obama won

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
10/09/09 8:41 AM EDT

The Nobel Committee says that there were a record 205 nominations for the Peace Prize this year (33 of them were organizations, not individuals). The path to Barack Obama's Peace Prize began last September, when the committee sent out invitations to a selected group of people, asking them for their nominations. The group included, according to the Nobel organization, "members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts of law; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs; previous Nobel Peace Prize Laureates; board members of organizations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute." Both in the United States and internationally, the Nobel cohort is precisely the type to be the most admiring Obama supporters.

The deadline for nominations was February 1. At that point, Obama had been president for 11 days.

In February and March, the committee honed down the 205 nominations to a short list. Obama obviously made that list; by the end of March, he had been president for 69 days.

In the period of March through August, the nominations were reviewed by a special group of Nobel advisers who, according to the committee do not give "explicit recommendations."

In October, the Nobel Committee voted on the prize. The winner was determined by majority vote, the Committee says, and "The decision is final and without appeal."

Obama obviously defeated about 200 other candidates for the prize. Who were they? The Committee does not reveal the names of nominees. "The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict disclosure of information about the nominations, whether publicly or privately, for 50 years," says the Committee. "The restriction concerns the nominees and nominators, as well as investigations and opinions related to the award of a prize."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 44307.html