'The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama' by David Remnick
A definitive chronicle of the growth and achievement of the first black U.S. president by the prize-winning New Yorker editor.
By Douglas Brinkley
LA Times
March 28, 2010
On Oct. 9, 2009, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs woke up at dawn and received startling news from Oslo. President Obama, only 48, had just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Usually, this most prestigious of awards honors lifetime accomplishment (read septuagenarian) or recent diplomatic triumph (read Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles). But not this time.
Dutifully, Gibbs called his boss with the mind-boggling international development. Using swear words unprintable in a family newspaper, a curt, disbelieving Obama told Gibbs to essentially "Shut up." It was too early for scuttlebutt. It took Obama a few minutes to realize that Gibbs wasn't yanking his chain.
For "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama" -- a brilliantly constructed, flawlessly written biography -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Remnick interviewed our 44th president about winning the Oslo honor.
"It was not helpful to us politically," Obama matter-of-factly recalls. "Although [David] Axelrod and I joke about it, the one thing we didn't anticipate this year was having to apologize for having won the Nobel Peace Prize."
(More here.)
By Douglas Brinkley
LA Times
March 28, 2010
On Oct. 9, 2009, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs woke up at dawn and received startling news from Oslo. President Obama, only 48, had just received the Nobel Peace Prize. Usually, this most prestigious of awards honors lifetime accomplishment (read septuagenarian) or recent diplomatic triumph (read Woodrow Wilson and the Treaty of Versailles). But not this time.
Dutifully, Gibbs called his boss with the mind-boggling international development. Using swear words unprintable in a family newspaper, a curt, disbelieving Obama told Gibbs to essentially "Shut up." It was too early for scuttlebutt. It took Obama a few minutes to realize that Gibbs wasn't yanking his chain.
For "The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama" -- a brilliantly constructed, flawlessly written biography -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Remnick interviewed our 44th president about winning the Oslo honor.
"It was not helpful to us politically," Obama matter-of-factly recalls. "Although [David] Axelrod and I joke about it, the one thing we didn't anticipate this year was having to apologize for having won the Nobel Peace Prize."
(More here.)
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