I think the Obama prize was just a reaction to how terrible the Bush administration was, not that he actually deserved it.
Yeah, if you watched Obama’s energy he had kind of a “Thanks guys, but why?” air about him through the whole thing.
Someone on HN said a long time ago that if you want to understand Obama's prize, just look at who it upsets.
Somewhere it's written that he and his team discussed internally about refusing it, but thought that action would be considered arrogant and diplomatically bad form.