THE WHITE House received no advance notice of yesterday’s announcement that President Barack Obama was being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Overnight staffers saw the news on the wire agencies and called Mr Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who woke Mr Obama just before 6am.
When a CBS television reporter sought reaction, Mr Gibbs texted back one word: “Wow”.
On MSNBC's Morning Joeprogramme, Mr Obama's adviser David Axelrod adopted the humble tone the president would use a few hours later.
“I guarantee you the president would trade every award, as humbling and as important as this one is, for . . . the dissolution of nuclear arsenals . . . to get our economy moving in a way that creates more jobs.”
In his Rose Garden appearance, Mr Obama twice referred to multilateralism, the approach that is one of the main reasons he was awarded the prize.
The challenges of the 21st century “can’t be met by any one leader or any one nation,” he said. “That’s why my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek.”
The US president enumerated the daunting list of challenges he seeks to meet: nuclear disarmament; halting global warming; a “new beginning . . . based upon mutual interest and mutual respect”; peace between Israel and Palestinians; ending the Iraq war; confronting America’s enemies in Afghanistan and exiting the global economic crisis.
These challenges “can be met so long as it’s recognised that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone,” he said.
Mr Obama’s speech mirrored the concerns raised in the Nobel committee’s citation.
“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,” the committee said.
“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.”
World leaders rushed to congratulate the US president. José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said the award was “a tribute to President Obama’s commitment to the values of peace and progress of humanity”.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy said the prize “confirms, finally, America’s return to the hearts of the people of the world”.
Reflecting the widespread perception that Mr Obama received the award more for his rhetoric and intentions that actual achievements, the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the award “anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all”.
But the chairman of the Nobel committee, Thorbjoern Jagland, told reporters the prize was not given “for what may happen in the future”.
Rather, he said, “We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year.” He cited the president’s speech about Islam in Cairo, his stand on nuclear proliferation and climate change, and his embrace of international bodies like the UN.
Officials from Iran and the Palestinian group Hamas made luke-warm, but not hostile, statements.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the award, saying Mr Obama “has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan”.
The ugliest remarks were made in the US, by the right-wing talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who told the Politico website the award “fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama”.
The “elites of the world” are using the Nobel Prize to urge Mr Obama not to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, not to stop the Iranian nuclear programme “and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the US,” Limbaugh said: “They love a weakened, neutered US, and this is their way of promoting that concept.”
Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Mr Obama’s “star power” had outshone more deserving candidates.
“President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility or backing up rhetoric with concrete action,” he added.
Mr Obama is only the third sitting US president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Theodore Roosevelt won it in 1906 for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese war. In 1919, Woodrow Wilson was similarly honoured for co-founding the League of Nations and shaping the Versailles treaty.
Former president Jimmy Carter received the Nobel in 2002, more than 20 years after he left office, for efforts to advance peace, democracy, human rights and development.