also joined in . Mickey Kaus of Slate said that the president should say thanks , but no thanks . `` Turn it down ! Politely decline . Say he 's honored but he has n't had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish . '' Liberal columnist Richard Cohen wrote a mocking column , comparing Obama 's award to a fictional award given to Sarah Palin for promising to `` read a book someday . '' We are all glad that Norway loves Obama , but come on . Let 's get serious . I am reminded of when Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf decided to retire the jersey of longtime White Sox player Harold Baines . It was a little premature for Baines to get his uniform retired when he himself was playing for another team . -LRB- Baines played a couple more years , surely the only instance where a player 's uniform was retired before the player was . -RRB- Awarding Obama the Nobel Peace Prize is similarly premature . In fact , the White House seemed as surprised as anybody about the gesture . I imagine that when Obama first picked
Editor 's note : John Feehery worked for former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republicans in Congress . He is president of Feehery Group , a Washington-based advocacy firm that has represented clients that include News Corp. , Ford Motor Co. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . He formerly was a government relations executive vice president for the Motion Picture Association of America . John Feehery says he 's proud Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize , but now the president needs to earn it . WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Usually , when a president wins the Nobel Peace Prize , it is uniformly seen as a positive development for America and for the world . Both opponents and allies tend to celebrate the fact that an American president actually got recognized by a bunch of Norwegians for something he achieved . But with Barack Obama , who surprisingly picked up his first Nobel Prize on Friday , the reaction was not altogether positive from either the left or the right . You would expect that conservatives would raise questions about the president 's award . Conservatives raise questions about everything the president does . But liberals