I thought this had to be a joke when I heard, but it seems to be for real. No wonder the Obama campaign was awarded two top prizes for advertising - it seems they did a terrific job and not just on Joe public. I read that the nominations were closed 2 weeks after Obama took office, now that is good going to nail down the prize in such a short time. 

      "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

I can only think it's been awarded based on his spoken intentions, so reading between the lines 'rhetoric' then. Don't mock 'rhetoric' though, it's pretty much all we've got these days, although the gap between 'it' and reality seems ever wider.  

As an aside, there is evidence that awards actually have a negative effect, a large proportion of Nobel winners, particulalry in the science field, never accomplish anything like the achievements they made before it. (Although this could be due to a regression to the mean). 

On reflection, maybe this maneouvre is a stroke of genius after all. Having won the Peace prize, the president couldn't really follow it up by sending more troops to death in Afghanistan, could he? Well, I guess we'll just have to see on that one.