What can I say about the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama? Statements of shock and surprise have poured in from around the world. Even Obama’s fellow travelers were surprised. The president himself could hardly believe it. Perhaps we might pause, however, before we scratch our heads and move on, and consider the “teachable moment” here. Why are so many people saying this is all about George W. Bush; and what does this tell us about America’s European critics and how we should consider what they say and do?

If it’s a stretch to portray the Nobel Committee as broadly representative of left-leaning European elites, it's not much of one. Let’s just say that, as far as the Peace Prize is concerned, they are a well-intentioned group of people appointed by the leftist Norwegian Parliament that attempts to draw attention to people and causes defined in their charter by handing out medals and millions of dollars. Barack Obama will receive a $1.4 million “stimulus” check when he accepts his prize. Reports say he will wisely donate the money to charity.

The Nobel Committee has given the Peace Prize to many deserving people whose accomplishments are known and respected around the world--Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Aung San Suu Kyi. Just the mention of their names is sufficient to explain why they received it.

In selecting Americans for the Peace Prize in recent years, however, the committee, it seems, indeed has used it to send a message about George Bush. In 2002, following the attacks of 9/11/2001 and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, they gave it to Jimmy Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." In 2007, at the height of the Iraq war, they gave it to Al Gore for his “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” This year they’re giving it to Barack Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," and because he isn’t George Bush.

George Bush was ridiculed and derided by Europeans on the left during most of his presidency. In 2002, when the Nobel Committee selected Carter for the Prize, one of its members said Carter’s selection was a “kick in the leg” to the Bush presidency. Yes, Carter has shown up in capitals around the world since he left office, but not everyone agrees that he's always made a positive contribution. Selecting the man in 2007 that lost to Bush in 2000 was less than subtle. Sure, the Nobel Committee members are climate-change true believers, and Gore was out there saving the world, but to believe that George Bush didn’t play a role in Gore’s selection is to ignore the Nobel Committee’s not-so-latent leftist tendencies.

Like liberals in the United States, left-leaning Europeans didn’t like Bush’s “unilateralism,” his invasion of Iraq--ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist, and his Texas swagger. He represented everything some people around the world believe is generally wrong with America. We’re just too powerful, too independent, and too cocky (at least we were).

President Bush did good things his leftist European critics don’t like to talk about. He liberated Iraq, killed thousands of terrorists who would have killed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of innocent people, and he provided over a billion dollars of HIV-aids treatment and prevention assistance that saved millions of African lives.

I suppose, if we Americans can count jobs “saved” by the stimulus package, we can count people who weren’t tortured by Saddam Hussein, lives saved by terrorist attacks that didn’t happen, and deaths prevented by medicine that otherwise wouldn’t have been available. Bush may have been “dumb, “inarticulate,” and “brash,” but he did what he believed was in America’s best interest; and like the baseball player in him, his batting average was nothing to scoff at. The Nobel Committee, however, certainly wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to admire Bush or the America he believed in. They’d rather tell Americans what kind of president they shouldn’t elect.

Regardless of how you feel about President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, you may disagree with the idea that George Bush figures so prominently in the Nobel Committee’s decision. You may reject the premise that when it comes to American politicians the committee has a preference for liberal Democrats over conservative Republicans. You may even find it far fetched when someone suggests that when it comes to world leaders, it likes former Soviet Communists presidents more than former American Republican presidents.

In 1990 the Nobel committee chose Mikhail Gorbachev "for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community" over Ronald Reagan. Even after he won the Cold War, with a little help from the Pope, Reagan was not popular with European elites. He didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the decades-long struggle between the free world and the evil Soviet empire. They gave it to Mikhail Gorbachev for surrendering.

So what is the lesson we should take away from this teachable moment? It’s a simple one. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot please all the people all the time. And if you're a conservative Republican you can't please leftist European elites anytime.

Had the Nobel Peace Prize existed in 1865, I doubt that the Nobel Committee, if it mirrored its modern counterpart, would have awarded it to a Republican president that had just freed the slaves. In doing that he made a lot of people very unhappy. They criticized, ridiculed, and vilified him. Now we consider him one of our greatest presidents.

Congratulations on your award Mr. President, but don’t let the adulation of the Nobel Committee cloud your judgment. Don’t let winning a “peace” prize dissuade you from winning a war in Afghanistan that is vital to American national security interests. Do what’s right for America, not what pleases the likes of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.