As Barack Obama is busy drafting his acceptance speech he’ll take to Norway for the Nobel Peace Prize, former Clinton speechwriter Mark Katz is getting a head start on his remarks for other awards that even the president will admit he may or may not deserve.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the Oscar for Best Actor
You love me!! You really love me!!
[PAUSE FOR LOUD, KNOWING LAUGHTER FOLLOWED BY THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE]
I would like to thank the Academy for this most unusual honor—which, if I understand it correctly, is being awarded to me for the outstanding performance that Denzel Washington will most certainly deliver in his next film, Brothers in Arms.
I understand full well that this award is not for accomplishments I myself have achieved but for the hope I have been able to inspire. And so I accept this award on behalf of those transformative actors who have inspired the world by their portrayals of great men: Charlton Heston as Moses. Ben Kingsley as Gandhi. And Jim Carrey for his portrayal of God in Bruce Almighty.
Of course, none of this would be possible with my agent, Ari Emanuel.
It is with deep humility that I accept this prize for the acceptance speech that I delivered with deep humility. In truth, I am in fact humbled by the very power of humility and have real doubts about my own ability to express its very deepness in the face of humilities’ daunting greatness.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the Emmy for Best Televised Acceptance Speech of a Nobel Peace Prize
First of all, let's give it up for Neil Patrick Harris—the man who has successfully delivered real change and given new hope to the next generation of televised award-show audiences!
It is with deep humility that I accept this prize for the acceptance speech that I delivered with deep humility. In truth, I am in fact humbled by the very power of humility and have real doubts about my own ability to express its very deepness in the face of humilities’ daunting greatness.
But this award is not for me. It is for the power of stirring, goose-pimply rhetoric that makes those who are privileged to hear it swoon in rapture. And so I would like to take this opportunity to thank the person who first inspired me to talk the walk—and walk the talk. And to stare into a TV camera and wax poetic about truth, justice, hope, and all that. Won't you please stand up, Mr. Aaron Sorkin!!!
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the Man of the Year Award from the American Committee for Job Creation, Fiscal Responsibility, and Backing Up Rhetoric with Concrete Action.
Thank you. I would like to thank Chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele for the inspiration he provided to the creators of this political action committee, which to be honest is just a letterhead generated by The Center for American Progress.
• Obama Won What?!: Daily Beast Contributors Weigh InVery clever, Podesta—you guys are good! However, in all seriousness, I believe there is truly a need for a prize such as this and I hope to win it again next year. In the meantime, I have decided to set up a trust to perpetuate this institution going forward and have decided to fund it with the money I was recently awarded with a MacArthur "genius" grant. In your face, Steele.
Statement of President Barack Obama Upon Being Awarded The First Annual Golden Obama.
It is indeed a double honor you have given me: First, naming this prize, which honors the public figure who exhibits the most prize-winning qualities after me. And then awarding to it me as its first recipient. I mean, I don't think Alfred Nobel won a Nobel Prize, nor did Joseph Pulitzer win a Pulitzer nor did Tony Randall ever win a Tony. I could go on and on. I hope I will continue to live up to the high prize-winning standards that are embodied in its namesake, President Barack Obama. Thank you and good night.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the 2009 American League MVP.
I can say that I do not belong in the same category of others who have won this award: Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Frank Robinson. And of course White Sox greats like Nellie Fox, Dick Allen, and Frank Thomas. But it was an American president who once said, "Talk softly and carry a big stick." And for those inspirational words invoking the essential and untapped power of a baseball bat, Teddy Roosevelt finished third in the balloting for National League MVP of 1906. And so I accept this award on behalf of our great citizens. Let us never forget that the “P” in M-V-P stands for people. The American people.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the 2009 American League Cy Young Award
Wow. Since the Cy Young Award was initiated in 1957, only nine pitchers have been named their league's best pitcher and its most valuable player times in the very same year. Those names include: Don Newcombe (1956), Sandy Koufax (1963), Bob Gibson (1968), Denny McLain (also 1968), Vida Blue (1971), Rollie Fingers (1981), Willie Hernandez (1984), Roger Clemens (1986), Dennis Eckersley (1992). And now me, (2009). Honestly, I am blown away.
Now I can say what I thought to myself then: that I was very pleased with the off-speed pitch I threw to open the 2009 All-Star Game, and accept this award not as a recognition of my pitching accomplishments but as a call to action to fully develop my skills as a pitcher. And for that, I thank you.
Excerpt from the 2010 State of Union Address
….That is why, my fellow Americans, we must take hope and take heart in the promise and the hope for a better America. And what better symbol of that hope sits right among us in the House Chamber? So I'd like to take this moment to recognize the hope by asking a very special American to stand. Tonight, sitting up in the balcony in the seat of America's first lady is Michelle Obama, the wife of President Barack Obama. And as you probably know, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded its coveted Peace Prize to her husband, Barack Obama. Michelle, would you please stand up—and stand in—for the embodiment of the hope that will see us through another year.
Statement of President Obama Accepting the J.D. Power Award for Customer Satisfaction
Very early this morning the phone rang, waking me to some thrilling news—that I am the 2009 recipient of the coveted J.D. Power Award for Customer Satisfaction. This award is enormously satisfying for me and I am grateful to those who took the time to share their thoughts with the pollsters who called and interrupted their dinner. The question they asked: "name the recent U.S. president with whom you have been most satisfied." Of course, I would like to thank the person who finished a distant second—and who has been so instrumental in the many wonderful awards that have recently been bestowed upon me: President George W. Bush.
Statement of President Barack Obama on Winning the 2009 National Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes
It is with great humility that I accept this check for $11,230,914 on behalf of the American people. I could not have been more surprised when those guys barged through the doors of the Oval Office with that silly oversize check—if only because I thought our security was so much tighter than that. I'm at a loss to explain how I was even entered to win this sweepstakes, except to say I am a faithful reader of The Nation, Mother Jones, and Vanity Fair and God only knows what box I checked off the last time I renewed my subscriptions.
Statement of President Barack Obama Amending His Remarks in Response to Winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
By the way, if you guys had given me a heads up that this Peace Prize was coming, I might have called NASA and postponed America's bombing of the moon.
A former political operative, recovering copywriter, and failed sitcom writer, Mark Katz is now the founder and principal of the Soundbite Institute, a creative think tank that specializes in on-message humor. His essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Time magazine, and he is the author of CLINTON & ME: A Real Life Political Comedy, an account of eight years as the in-house humor speechwriter of the Clinton White House.
