When I heard the news that President Obama had won the Nobel Prize for Peace, my first reaction was,"That award used to really mean something."

I thought of lots of other people and groups that have worked for decades on behalf of peace, taking the risks of poverty and the ire of their government. Fr. Daniel Berrigan SJ, Fr. Louie Vitale OFM, Fr. John Dear SJ, Kathy Kelly and the Catholic Worker movement immediately came to mind. Why not any of them?

I read the Nobel committee's reason for the award to the president was not his accomplishments on behalf of peace (he really doesn't yet have any), but the hope for the prospect of peace he brings to the world at large.

Then I remembered two conversations I had with foreigners last summer before Obama was elected. One was in Washington, D.C., with a woman from the UK. I was on trial for the Supreme Court action and was on a lunch break at an outdoor cafe when this woman and I struck up a conversation. The talk turned to why I was “visiting” D.C., and I explained to her why I was there. She gave me a glimpse of the rest of the world's perception of my country. She told me that George Bush had so damaged the reputation of this country that she thought it would take generations before it could be restored – if ever. Most Americans did not have any idea of how badly Bush had wrecked our standing with our world neighbors, she told me. I had some inkling, but even I was taken aback by her words and the passion behind them.

The second conversation was with one of my Canadian summer racing-season guests. Jeremiah (from Montreal) and I had a talk about politics one morning and he told me about how Obama brought so much hope to the world. He placed great emphasis on “the world."

And this summer one of my Canadian guests, Peter, reiterated Jeremiah's comments from the year before about the hope Obama had brought to him. He told me that there was only one other president who had brought him this kind of hope for a better world, and that was Reagan. He did preface his remark with, “You might not agree with this but...” (He got that right.)

I have more than once quoted the late, great Molly Ivins to my Canadian guests, “Living next door to the United States must be like living next door to the 'Simpsons,' " and this summer one of them told me that we are the “greatest sideshow on earth."

I think the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama says more about the collective sigh of relief the rest of the world has been breathing since Obama's election than it does about Obama himself.

While I still find the committee's reason for awarding the peace prize to our president dubious and I would rather that Fr. Berrigan had been given the award, I understand the place from where the Nobel Prize committee had arrived.