While I still hope Obama’s team will tell him to turn down the Nobel Peace Prize (see my earlier post), that now looks unlikely.His initial reaction doesn’t leave much wriggle room (“humbled to be selected” etc). Given that he was woken in the early hours to be told the news, one wonders whether this was the 3 am call that Hillary tried to warn us all about.

So let’s look forward to Obama’s December, which could progress along two dramatically different paths. Here’s the key dates:

December 7: Copenhagen climate summit opens.

December 10: 300 miles away, Obama arrives in Oslo to give his Peace prize acceptance speech.

December 16: Copenhagen’s high level segment starts (the bit Ban-Ki Moon, Ministers and some heads of state pitch up for – Gordon Brown is confirmed, other are under pressure to turn up).

December 18: Copenhagen concludes – with a deal (triumphant headlines) or no deal (major league acrimony).

So by Christmas, two scenarios – one that will see the President attain mythical status before his first anniversary in office; the other will fuel claims that he is already a busted flush:

Obama’s best case: Health care passed. Nobel prize accepted to great acclaim. Climate change deal sealed (now an outside chance, that is certain to require Obama’s personal intervention).

His worst case: No health care. Copenhagen talks have collapsed. Remorseless mockery for Obama’s Nobel. The IOC’s snub to Chicago’s Olympics dream (also delivered in Copenhagen) now seen as portent for what was to come.

So hold tight Mr President. December is going to be quite a ride.

Early reactions to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize are almost universally negative. I agree. The decision is absurd.

I’d love to be in the White House now. How does the President react? What can he possibly say that won’t make him look vain and narcissistic? Also – when was he informed? Did his team know this was coming? Was there anything they could do to head it off?

If I was one of his advisers, I’d currently be writing a speech that started something like this:

Today, the Nobel Peace Prize committee made a decision that places an enormous, but welcome, burden on my shoulders. They hope that I can be part of a new global effort to achieve a nuclear free world. This goal is of paramount importance to our future, and that of our descendants, and I would like to thank the committee for recognizing that fact.

There is still a great deal of work to be done, however. We are at the beginning of what will be a long and difficult journey. That is why, after much soul searching, I have decided that I must decline the honour that has been offered to me and ask that it be awarded to a more deserving beneficiary – one whose contribution to peace is in the past, not the future.

Perhaps, in ten, twenty or thirty years’ time, I will be truly worthy of a prize that has such an illustrious history. Today’s news has inspired me to redouble my efforts to make sure that is the case.

Update: Loren Feldman: “In office for 11 days when nominations closed. The fix was in. A sad day for the whole world. Shameful.”

Update II: Just done an interview for ABC News on why Obama should decline. Cashewman is thinking along similar lines.

Update III: This tweet seems to be going viral: “BREAKING NEWS on Obama’s Nobel prize. Turns out it was awarded for making peace with Hillary Clinton.”

Update IV: Looks like he’s going to accept it – big big mistake, I say:

U.S. President Barack Obama felt humbled to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a senior administration official said.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called before dawn and woke Obama with the news that he had won the prestigious honor which was announced in Oslo at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT). “The president was humbled to be selected by the committee,” the official said.

When told in an e-mail from Reuters that many people around the world were stunned by the announcement, Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, responded, “As are we.”

Update V: Here’s an interesting wrinkle. Obama will be accepting his Nobel Prize in Oslo on December 10, just as the climate talks get under way a few hundred miles down the road in Copenhagen.

As America digests the news that Chicago won’t be holding the Olympics, the right has reacted with unbridled joy, while other commentators just seem dumbfounded. I especially like Politico’s roundup, which claims that “veteran Olympic watchers” have been left stunned by the decision.

This claim rests on quotes from Olympic historian, Bill Mallon who grumbles about the voting procedure, suggests with a straight face that the IOC should be remodelled on the US Congress, and puts the whole thing down to anti-Americanism.

If the U.S. president, who is universally recognized as the most powerful person on the face of the earth, comes to their meeting and entreats them to give him the games to his own home city, which has by far the best bid, and they turn around and say not only are we not going to give you the games, but you finish last – that reveals that they’re so euro-centric and international-centric, it’s ridiculous.

Leaving aside the ongoing, and bizarre, insecurity about Europe, d0 we really have to apologize for the International Olympic Committee not acting as an extension of American power?

(Especially, when Obama told delegates “We stand at a moment in history when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations — a time of common challenges that require common effort.”)

Unfortunately, we have more of this whingeing to look forward to. The United States has had two Olympics since 1984 – with the second, in Atlanta, widely recognised at the worst games in recent times. Now, angered at not having hosted a World Cup (soccer, for American readers – you know, the sport kids play) since 1994, the US is bidding for the 2018 or 2022 championships. Obama, Disney and even Henry Kissinger (!) have been lined up in  support.

The decision is due in December, just as the Copenhagen climate summit will be in full swing. Maybe the United States should throw major sporting events into the climate negotiating pot: “every time you don’t let us have an Olympics or World Cup, then another small island state will be left to drown…”

(more…)

- With the anniversary of Lehman Brother’s demise, the FT recalls the events of that fateful weekend last September. The NYT has reflections of three former Lehman employees, while a Guardian roundtable asks what lessons, if any, we’ve learned from the bank’s fall. Niall Ferguson, meanwhile, rails against those who argue “if only Lehman had been saved”. He suggests:

Like the executed British admiral in Voltaire’s famous phrase, Lehman had to die pour encourager les autres – to convince the other banks that they needed injections of public capital, and to convince the legislature to approve them.

- Sticking with matters financial and economic, Der Spiegel has an interview with the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on the Fund’s actions during the crisis and the potential for a new role for the institution going forward. Former MPC member, David Blanchflower, meanwhile, offers a telling insight into the inner workings of the Bank of England’s decision-making as financial meltdown ensued.

- Elsewhere, the WSJ reports on President Sarkozy’s call to broaden indicators of economic performance and social progress beyond traditional GDP, following the findings of the Stiglitz Commission. Richard Layard, expert on the economics of happiness, offers his take here, arguing that “[w]e desparately need a social norm in which the good of others figures more prominently in our personal goals”.

- Wolfgang Münchau, meanwhile, assesses the implications of an Irish  “No” vote in the upcoming referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.  “There is an intrinsic problem for the Yes campaign in Ireland”, he suggests, “which is that the core of the treaty was negotiated seven years ago. This is a pre-crisis treaty for a post-crisis world… If we had to reinvent the treaty from scratch, we would probably produce a very different text”.

- Finally, last week saw the German Marshall Fund of the US publish its Transatlantic Trends survey for 2009. Unsurprisingly, a majority of Europeans (77%) support Barack Obama’s foreign policy compared to the 2008 finding for George W. Bush (19%); though the “Obama bounce” was less keenly felt in Central and Eastern Europe than Western Europe. A multitude of other interesting stats – on attitudes to Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, the economic crisis, and climate change –  can be found here (pdf).

Rumours have long been floating around that the Abu Ghraib photos that Barack Obama has been battling to keep secret are much more graphic than anything yet published. A week ago the Telegraph dived into the fray to confirm the story:

Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse… At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Shocking stuff and all the more credible because their source, Major General Anthony Taguba, conducted the original investigation of Abu Ghraib and has since played a key role in continuing to describe “a systematic regime of torture” authorised directly by George Bush. Taguba believes that there is “no doubt” that the Bush adminstration was guilty of war crimes.

The Telegraph, however, had Obama in its sights, not Bush. He’d promised to release the photos, then relented when lobbied by the military. He’d then lied about their content: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.” Rape? Sodomy? Not particularly sensational! It was quite a scoop.

The Obama adminstration was unamused, trying to divert attention by attacking the British meda, with an Obama spokesman describing the British press as the last place you’d look for “something that bordered on truthful news.”

The Telegraph was apoplectic, publishing three furious responses. Nile Gardiner: “‘juvenile,” an “absolute disgrace.” Toby Harnden: “a smokescreen,”  ”as arrogant as anything the Bush administration ever said about the press.” James Delingpole: “stop pooping on our lawn.”

One problem. It turns out the Taguba had been misquoted. He was referring to other photos that he’d seen – and which have already been published in 2006 – by Salon. Scott Horton, who had also been promoting the story, issued this apology:

The 44 photos subject to the ACLU lawsuit and reviewed by President Obama do not contain sexually explicit images. I regret my errors.

And the Telegraph? Well, so far it’s just kept digging. Indeed, it reported Taguba’s clear denial as confirming its story, while claiming Scott Horton’s reporting also backed them up. Apologies, as James Delingpole would no doubt put it, are clearly for “pantywaists”.

Expect more “robus”‘ reporting from the Telegraph in the future, now it’s cemented in its role as the scourge of the political class, and as it acts to correct the failings of America’s “congenitally libtard Mainstream Media.” According to Delingpole:

We don’t respect politicians any more. Not our politicians, and not yours either. Imagine how this new strain of irreverence bordering on utter contempt is going to affect our reporting of political affairs.

It’s going to be a fun ride…