The cast of "Morning Joe" Friday tried valiantly to find any possible good in President Obama's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. They failed, but they did offer the president some tips on how to move past what they saw as the awful embarrassment of winning an international award.
"The upside is the European community is embracing this president and saying we like the direction that he is taking this country in and it's drastically different," suggested Mika Brzezinski. She was quickly shot down.
"The upside is the Nobel Prize committee that has had suspect selections in the past has just befuddled a lot of people across the world," said host Joe Scarborough.
"I predict right now that he will find a way to basically turn it down," Time's Mark Halperin added. "I think he is going to say, I share this with the world or whatever. I don't think he'll embrace this. Because there is no upside."
"The damage is done," Brzezinski lamented.
NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd concurred that the prize posed problems for Obama. "You're right, will he go to Stockholm to pick it up? What does he do with the money? You get a million dollars. You get over a million dollars for winning this." (The prize is actually given in Oslo. There is a banquet in Stockholm.) But Todd was confident that Obama would survive the crisis. "Mark's probably right," he said. "He'll figure out some way of accepting this in another form, not on his own behalf."
Conservatives have been equally dour on the surprise honor. But some people are pleased that the international community has shown support for our president and his foreign policy goals.