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Opinion: Now, Obama wins Motor Trend Car of Year Award

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It’s been quite a two successful weeks for President Obama.

First, he saved Illinois and federal taxpayers countless millions of rescue dollars by helping to lose Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics in the very first round of voting.

Then, even as he slept on the 289th day of his first term’s 1,461 days, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Democratic president said he was humbled by his selection and millions agreed the ex-state senator should be.

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Especially since: 1) the peace prize recipient is overseeing the prosecution of two wars at the moment while contemplating a recommended escalation, and 2) the Nobel nominations were due by Feb. 1, the 12th day of the Obama administration. By which time the new president had barely promised to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within one year, an absolute deadline now absolutely hopeless.

Obama was pleased to be the latest in a long line of Democratic presidents to receive the internationally recognized award. Jimmy Carter got the Nobel Peace Prize for years of work culminating, finally, in a lasting peaceful settlement of the long Middle East conflict, as each day’s news from there demonstrates.

Bill Clinton, oh, wait, he didn’t win a Nobel, which explains his silence since Friday and the ...

... steam escaping from his Harlem office building. But Al Gore did win the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, but, wait, he neglected to win the presidency first.

Anyway, the award puts Obama in the company of great historical figures like Mikhail Gorbachev, Elie Wiesel, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Kofi Anan and Yasser Arafat.

The premature prize to Obama for global lifetime achievement before he’s eligible for AARP membership has prompted a flurry of satirical speculation about what other awards are likely to honor the 47-year-old father of two in coming days.

He’s already got two real Grammys for being a good talker of recorded books. And some jokers on Twitter have started petitions to get Obama into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame as well as this year’s Heisman Trophy.

The Motor Trend award* is certain for the presidential owner of a Ford that’ll be perpetually parked in Chicago for at least three more years now while its owner rides around in heavily armed Secret Service Suburbans.

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An Academy Award Oscar from Obama-loving Hollywood seems a gimme next year for best screenplay of a movie yet to be made of a life yet to be lived.

A 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Obama’s as-yet unwritten memoirs of the first 19% of his first term in office can be expected. (Do you think it’ll make Oprah’s recommended list?)

But that Obama volume faces stiff commercial competition from Sarah Palin’s finished book about her own incomplete first term.

A Tony for the Broadway production of the nonexistent musical of the unwritten memoir of Obama’s incomplete first year.

And, naturally, an Emmy for the Animal Planet channel’s miniseries documenting the months-long political decision-making about acceptance of a purebred dog from a Texas breeder over a Cinderella tale of some lost, caged canine plucked from a local shelter.

The award possibilities are multitudinous in today’s perpetual presidential campaigns. An Espy for the first presidential three-pointer during a female-free White House basketball game.

The NASCAR points race is still close enough for an arranged Obama win. But the Cy Young Award would be another reach since he only threw one pitch all season, at the All-Star Game.

What about the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Obama’s the president. Congressional approval’s a mere formality given the tight control there of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid over their Democratic party’s lopsided majorities.

Yes, yes, it was belated. But during the violent Iranian election aftermath last June Obama did mourn the loss of innocent lives like Neda Agha-Soltan‘s. And he did criticize any ‘unjust actions’ -- while quickly reassuring Iran’s regime diplomatically that the U.S. has no interest in interfering with that country’s internal ‘debate.’

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And what a photo op! President Obama wrapping the ribboned presidential medal around President Obama’s neck.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photos: Associated Press; White House (Presidential Medal of Freedom).

*Hat Tip to loyal Ticket reader Pete Lewis

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