“Obama puts a pretty, intellectual, liberal face on some ugly and decidedly illiberal polices. Just as George Bush's Christian-based moralizing let conservatives feel good about America regardless of what it does, Obama's complex and elegiac rhetoric lets many liberals do the same.”

“There seems to me to be a huge tension between the demands placed on Obama the practical politician and Obama the Nobel recipient.”

“Obama's vision for the future isn't easy or clean, but he's committed to hanging on that arc, doing his best to bend it towards justice.”

“President Obama accepted the Nobel for peacemaking by delivering an eloquent, often grim treatise on the nature and necessity of warfare.”

“The tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he was caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward.”