Obama good enough for Nobel Peace Prize, but not Arizona State

Barack Obama is apparently good enough for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it wasn’t too long ago that Arizona State University declined to give the president an honorary degree when he came out to deliver its commencement address last May.

In April, ASU stunned the White House by saying it would not issue its customary honorary degree to the newly minted president.

“It’s our practice to recognize an individual for his body of work, somebody who’s been in their position for a long time,” Sharon Keeler, an ASU spokeswoman, told the Associated Press. “His body of work is yet to come. That’s why we’re not recognizing him with a degree at the beginning of his presidency.”

Embarrassed by the bad publicity around the perceived snub, ASU then announced a scholarship program named after Obama. It also conferred no other honorary degrees at its May commencement.

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