Today in his daily column, Civil Libertarian blogger Glenn Greenwald gives props to Obama for changing the tone: His speech in Cairo, his willingness to talk to Iran, pressure to Israel to stop settlements, his moves to close Guantanamo, etc.

On balance, however, Greenwald sees lack of accomplishments, and little progress in the Muslim world, contrary to the assertions of the Nobel Committee. This award, he says, was "painfully ludicrous."

Excerpt:

When I saw this morning's top New York Times headline -- "Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize" -- I had the same immediate reaction which I'm certain many others had: this was some kind of bizarre Onion gag that got accidentally transposed onto the wrong website, that it was just some sort of strange joke someone was playing. Upon further reflection, that isn't all that far from the reaction I still have.

Excerpt:

GREENWALD (10-9-09): Beyond Afghanistan, Obama continues to preside over another war -- in Iraq: remember that? -- where no meaningful withdrawal has occurred. He uttered not a peep of opposition to the Israeli massacre of Gazan civilians at the beginning of this year (using American weapons), one which a U.N. investigator just found constituted war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The changed tone to Iran notwithstanding, his administration frequently emphasizes that it is preserving the option to bomb that country, too -- which could be a third war against a Muslim country fought simultaneously under his watch. He's worked tirelessly to protect his country not only from accountability -- but also transparency -- for the last eight years of war crimes, almost certainly violating America's treaty obligations in the process. And he is currently presiding over an expansion of the legal black hole at Bagram while aggressively demanding the right to abduct people from around the world, ship them there, and then imprison them indefinitely with no rights of any kind.[/div]

Excerpt:

As Der Spiegel put it in the wake of a worldwide survey in July: "while Europe's ardor for Obama appears fervent, he has actually made little progress in the regions where the US faces its biggest foreign policy problems." People who live in regions that have long been devastated by American weaponry don't have the luxury of being dazzled by pretty words and speeches."

"That's what makes this Prize so painfully and self-evidently ludicrous," he added.

I'm sick of everyone piling up on the highly popular Hamid Karzai. Let's provide context.

Barack Obama, a highly popular candidate last year, received 53% of the vote. Compare this to Karzai's feat, as reported in today's Washington Post:

In southern Helmand province -- where 134,804 votes were recorded, 112,873 of them for President Hamid Karzai -- the United Nations estimated that just 38,000 people voted, and possibly as few as 5,000, according to a U.N. spreadsheet obtained by The Washington Post.

That's close to 300% of the vote!

Now let's move forward.