How Obama Might Have Received the Nobel News: A Fantasy
President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office in Washington, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009, before speaking about winning the Nobel Peace Prize in the Rose Garden. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
(Alex Brandon - AP)
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Friday, October 9, 2009; 6:37 PM
So you're roused from sleep and told you won a Nobel Peace Prize, arguably the loftiest award in the solar system. How do you feel?
President Obama was "surprised," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. And . . . that's it? Surprised? What about elated to have achieved such a distinction? Or frustrated that it will distort a precarious agenda? We're left to wonder and invent what might have happened Friday in those early hours in the White House . . .
The phone rings in the master bedroom. President Obama, groggy, picks up the phone.
GIBBS [on the phone]: Mr. President, it's Gibbs. Sorry to wake you, but we have a situation.
OBAMA: What's up, Gibbs?
GIBBS: The Norwegians, Mr. President. The Norwegians have really done it this time.
OBAMA: Gibbs, are you still out? With Axelrod? Have you been to bed yet?
GIBBS: Sir, they've awarded you the Nobel Prize.
OBAMA: What?
He turns to his wife.
OBAMA: Michelle. Wake up. I told you my speeches and two autobiographies were better than anything Philip Roth ever scribbled out. Let's scratch the Nobel Prize for Literature from my bucket list.
Michelle Obama rolls over.
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