WASHINGTON - The “stunning surprise” of US President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize 2009, was greeted at home with expressions of disbelief to praise for a “bold choice”.

“The stunning surprise announcement coming extraordinarily early in Mr. Obama’s presidency - less than nine months after he took office as the first African American president - shocked people from Norway to Washington,” said The New York Times.

The White House had no idea it was coming.

“There has been no discussion, nothing at all,” said Rahm Emanuel, the president’s chief of staff, in a brief telephone interview to NYT.

There was no official comment from the White House. However, a senior administration official told the newspaper in an e-mail message that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the White House shortly before 6 a.m. and woke up the president with the news.

“The president was humbled to be selected by the committee,” the official said, without adding anything further.

Leading US business magazine Forbes called Obama’s selection as “Nobel’s Bold Choice”.

“He may be mired in controversial debates on health care and foreign policy back at home, but US President Barack Obama has just been given the mother of all votes of confidence in Norway: the annual Nobel Peace Prize,” it said.

“The choice was a shocker to international observers…and one that has already stirred up some bouts of cynicism,” it said.

“We’re all sitting round here shocked,” Forbes quoted Robin Shepherd, director of international affairs at the Henry Jackson Society as saying.

Shepherd believes that the choice represents “infantilism” on the part of the Nobel Committee, and “soft-bellied adoration of an untested president”.

The Washington Post said in awarding the coveted prize to Obama, the “Nobel Committee echoed a global embrace of the US president that has seen his popularity overseas often exceed his support at home”.