"gasps of astonishment."

"stunned."

Those are the terms Reuters, the most staid of the news reporting organizations, used to describe the effect of President Barack Obama's selection as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize today.

Fridays have not been kind to the president recently. A week ago Obama embarrassed himself and diminished the role of the presidency by dramatically and inexplicably flying to Denmark to lobby for Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. And then came in fourth out of four contenders.

Now this.

Let us be clear: Obama is not to blame here. He did not nominate himself, he did not lobby for the Nobel Prize. Even David Axelrod, a senior advisor to the president, when told that many were stunned by the announcement, replied, "As are we."

It would be generous to say that Obama, in office just over eight months, has a record of achievement in international peace-making. It is, to employ the term de jour, "astonishing" that any would think that record merits a Nobel Prize.

However in recent years the peace prize has become a blatantly political award that reflects the twee, frozen political fashions current in the frozen north. It is awarded by a cloistered, clueless group of elites whose cluelessness is accurately reflected in previous winners Yasser Arafat, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore.

President Obama now joins that rogue's gallery.

The White House now has a problem on its hands: how to respond. Here's guessing, and hoping, that when they say, as they have, that they are "humbled," they respond with humility: do the closest thing to ignoring it that is diplomatically (he is a certified peace-maker now, after all) feasible.

Other Nobel laureates have refused the reward. Should Obama? To receive it he has to travel again to Scandinavia, which he might want to avoid for the duration of his life. Then he has to bow to the King of Sweden so that His Majesty can drape the Olympic-like medal around his neck.

The image is painful even to imagine.

However to refuse it would probably be too un-peaceful a move. He can't send his regrets pleading the press of world affairs when he has already set the precedent by flying to Copenhagen to lobby the I.O.C. Probably a brief fly-by a la Copenhagen and an "I am literally not worthy" speech is the least bad of the options.

This is Public Occurrences.