This just in, “And the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize goes to….. Barack Hussein Obama?” Huh?
I know, it sounds like an episode of Punked. An Internet prank, right? After all, he has been our president for less than nine months. The Nobel Award Committee actually closed the nominations in early February, roughly three weeks after Obama’s inauguration. Obama beat out 171 other individuals and 33 organizations – including a dude from Ethiopia, who freed 2,000 slaves from the Sudan, carried them on his back, one at a time 300 miles through the 120 degree Saharan Desert heat and then fed them cookies – Oatmeal cookies, I believe. How did that guy not win?
Even Obama’s most ardent supporters (and I’m one of them) would admit that despite a gift for delivering a few inspiring speeches and a moderately successful beer summit, he really can’t claim many concrete achievements yet – certainly not in the area of world peace. An A for effort? For sure. But results? No so much. 
And yet somehow, the rookie 44th president – barely out of his presidential training wheels – won the most prestigious International award there is. My personal theory? He must possess incriminating photos of one of the five Norwegian judges – I suspect a leather spiked dog collar, hand cuffs and a rubber duck outfit were involved
Talking heads speculate that it was not so much the Nobel Peace Prize that he won as much as the No BUSH Peace Prize – that this European body of judges gave him the award in part because his approach to international diplomacy departed so noticeably from his predecessor.
So the investigative reporter in me was determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. How did he win? What I have uncovered may shock you. It turns out that Obama has a superhuman charismatic touch that no mere mortal can resist. I was able to break into the files of a variety of prominent awards committees (as an investigative journalist, I am allowed to break into files, just as long as I put everything back neatly). Turns out that our new president is not just held in high esteem by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, but by several other awards bodies as well. I can now reveal for the first time that President Obama will soon be announced the winner of the following prestigious awards and honors:
• In a stunning turn-around, a separate Nobel Committee will withdraw its Physics Prize which it had previously handed out to three scientists for breakthroughs in fiber optics and semiconductor circuit imaging. Instead, they will bestow the Physics award to Obama. Said Physics prize judge, Olaf Svensen “Mr. Obama is a true scholar. We were deeply impressed by his high school experiment where he mixed Diet Coke and Mentos to make a bottle rocket that went over 50 feet in the air. Brilliant.”
• He also will win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize Award for Literature for his 2006 book, Audacity of Hope. Said one member of the prize committee who asked to remain anonymous: “While it was rather light on substance and insights, I just found it to be a real page turner. I couldn’t put it down.”
• In what can only be considered a confounding turnaround, Taylor Swift’s award for Best New Video at the MTV Video Music Awards will be retroactively reversed and awarded to Obama. The award will be presented to him by Kanye West.
• For the first time ever in the history of the award, a democrat – you guessed it, Obama – will win the Republican of the Year award. Said Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, “Personally none of us on the committee can stand the guy. But we simply could not resist his overwhelming appeal. How do you say no to that smile?”
• The Vatican will release a statement that upon the death of Pope Benedict the 16th The Sacred College of Cardinals will unanimously recommend Obama for the vacant see. “It’s a virtual lock” said 185 of the Cardinals, who wished to remain anonymous. The Catholic Church gossip magazine, The Vatican Rag, says that they are in possession of never-before-seen photos of Obama being fitted for a Pope’s Mitre. Obama will be given an honorary Catholic conversion pass, since he is currently Baptist.
• The 2010 World Cup, to be held next year in Johannesburg, South Africa, normally goes to the team that makes it all the way through the tournament victorious. In a stunning break with long-standing tradition, the World Cup Committee has decided that the 2010 winner will be Barack Obama, even though technically he doesn’t even constitute “a team.” Sorry, Brazil and Spain.
• Time Magazine will award Obama Man of the Millennium for 2000 – 2999: The Editorial Board, after much heated deliberation unanimously agreed with this decision, noting that there was really no reason to wait. The outcome was a foregone conclusion, so why wait another 1000 years? Besides, they concluded it would be good for newsstand sales, which are off by 10% this year.
Other awards he is scheduled to win in 2010 include:
- Mr. Universe
- Miss Universe
- People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive (just beating out Dr. McDreamy, Patrick Dempsey)
- The Academy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award
- Daytime Emmy for Best Actor in a soap opera
- America’s Got Talent (His talent? Smiling and waving)
- World’s Best Dad
I know it’s hard to believe just what kind of universal appeal this man possesses. Outside of Rush Limbaugh, (whose head actually exploded upon hearing the announcement), it appears people of all political persuasions throughout the world are powerless to resist his irrepressible smile and gift for inspirational oratory. There is no truth, however, to the rumor that he will win Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show next year. Clinging steadfast to tradition, they have resisted the pressure to relax the eligibility requirements and have issued a statement that the Best in Show award will continue to go only to canines, not humans, for the foreseeable future.
I was going to nominate our house for Best Christmas Decorations Display in our neighborhood’s annual Christmas House Decorating competition this December. I was really planning to go all out this year – with those giant Costco snow globes and everything. But what’s the point anymore. We both know who’s going to win.
That’s the view from the bleachers. Perhaps I’m off base.
© Tim Jones, View from the Bleachers 2010 – 2011
Very funny. Normally I channel surf with the sound off while doing my back exercises early in the morning. I hit Fox News and saw the crawl on the screen announcing the award and turned the sound on. The announcers were flabbergasted. They looked like me after Bucky F&*king Dent’s homer.
I saw the words “honorary Catholic conversion pass” and all I (a long retired altar boy) thought “Does that mean he gets two points?” I have been watching way too many high school football games.
Also, the newspaper name was positively Fisherian. If you sneak in a Bob and Ray reference in your next post he’ll send you one gallon of invisible paint.
Oh! Tim
Where did you get that picture, very funny!
I am waiting for him to win “Best in Show” I think that will ba a day to celebrate! 🙂
My oh my, Tim. Not only are you off base here, methinks you fell off the bleachers this time. You giggle and you make fun and you draw caricatures. But, my God, I’m so proud of this man. I’m so proud of this country for electing a man seen worthy of such an honor.
International friends say, “If you don’t want him, we’ll take him and the Nobel Peace Prize, too!”
I was ecstatic when I heard the announcement — the first sitting US President in nearly 100 years to be so honored! That was my President they were talking about! My President! It’s been way too long since I felt that way.
I wish you could share my joy.
And now that you’ve joined those who laugh and guffaw that President Obama brought the Nobel Peace Prize home to our country, I have to ask: Did you also join those who celebrated and rejoiced when he didn’t bring home the Olympics? Do you think ACORN fixed the Committee?
In case you didn’t read why he received the Nobel Peace Prize (and many who denigrate his award have not), I bring you the following announcement from the Committee:
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
“For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman.”
This is not a good thing to be honored for? This is not a good thing to be doing? This is not worthy of note?
That’s the view from the cheering section.
Well, Tim! After that lambasting by Bernice, there is really nothing more to say, but since this is a free country, I will say more, anyway, just as I will continue to use commas to increase the length of this sentence until my comma key breaks…
I have a few issues of my own concerning your “investigative reporting,” mister!
And I quote:
“including a dude from Ethiopia, who freed 2,000 slaves from the Sudan, carried them on his back, one at a time 300 miles through the 120 degree Saharan Desert heat and then fed them cookies – Oatmeal cookies, I believe. How did that guy not win?”
Since you have asked this rhetorical question, I feel compelled to answer!
It will be obvious why this guy did not win, after I clear up some inaccuracies in this quote. First of all, this guy carried the wrong people on his back out of the Sudan. The slaves are still in the Sudan, well, slaving away. The people he did carry only thought that the behavior was unusual in that this “peace guy” was carrying them, rather than their usual slaves. Secondly, it was only 298 miles. I won’t even comment about the temperature you cite. Finally, and most importantly, all of the people he “rescued” had severe oatmeal allergies, and so the cookies nearly killed them. Sadly, the survivors were left without the use of an entire square inch of the top of their skulls, rendering them unaware of any problem.
Now, does that sound like a Nobel Prize performance? I think not.
I have something to say to readers of this blog (especially Bernice). Repeat after me: “Humor Blog”. Things are meant to be taken in “good humor,” because Tim is “just kidding.” There are plenty of serious political blogs, like the “Qwazy Qoncervatives’ Qlub” where they say many of the same things as here, except they mean what they say!