Will President Obama Be Able to Live Up to the World's Expectations?

Oct. 10, 2009— -- The already high bar set for President Obama got even higher Friday, when the Nobel Prize Committee shocked the world, and the president himself, by announcing he was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Just nine months into his presidency, Obama has set an ambitious diplomatic agenda, calling for peace between Israel and the Palestinians and a decrease in the world's nuclear weapons, but has yet to achieve any real results.

Already faced with the challenge of working to ensure his actions keep pace with his rhetoric, the president now has an even higher standard by which his accomplishments will be gauged.

As his former opponent, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., put it: "He now has even more to live up to."

The committee said it awarded the prize to Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," but made the clear the prize was intended to encourage Obama to greatness rather than celebrate any achievement.

"I hope it will help him," Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said of the award. "Obama is the right man at the right time, and that's why we want to enhance his efforts."

The White House, seemingly wary of the burden of another mantel, made a point to express the president's surprise.

Rather than strike the usually celebratory note of a winner, Obama accepted the award humbly.

"To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize," Obama said.

Obama said he would accept the award later this year in Oslo and would donate the $1.4 million prize money to charity, adding that he was a long way from achieving his list of goals.

It remains to be seen what, if any affect, winning the award will have on a wartime president who is commanding American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and is in the midst of deciding whether to send more troops to fight in Afghanistan.