It is hard to add something serious to a topic as risible as Obama’s peace prize, but here goes a try at it. President Obama is in a bad jam. He is intelligent enough (and a number of his advisors are certainly intelligent enough) to see the political capital that would be accumulated if he turned the prize down. In terms of public perception, Obama is already to narcissism what Gerald Ford was to clumsy, and turning the prize down would badly damage that narrative. Narcissism is the cheat grass in Obama’s socks, and here is a golden opportunity to take off his socks and shoes, get rid of those pesky things, and stay on the road for the rest of the walk.
But this is a course of action, in my view, that is virtually impossible. The variant of pomo-narcissism that afflicts the president (and the nation that elected him) can only be driven out by fasting and prayer. Every last person in the White House could know that turning the prize down was necessary, and yet they would be constitutionally incapable of making that happen. So Obama’s schtick will be to try to spin and play the reaction that this Scandinavian Howler has received thus far. He will receive the prize “with deep and profound humility,” with protestations that it could only be deserved by accomplishments in the future somehow. He will receive the prize with a sonorous and well-delivered speech, an uplifted tilt to his nose, and a heart like a well-inflated birthday party balloon.