Only the third sitting American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize (after Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt), Obama acknowledged, “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.” Obama was selected, the committee said, for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”—despite the fact that his term began only two short weeks before the nomination deadline.