Can Obama survive the shame of global popularity?

Obama to tell Human Rights Campaign he expects progress in "coming weeks."

Sarah Palin gets snubbed by Bob McDonnell. That and other political news in today's TPMDC Saturday Roundup.

A State Department spokesperson, commenting on the Obama's Nobel:

Certainly from our standpoint, this gives us a sense of momentum -- when the United States has accolades tossed its way, rather than shoes.

Rimshot, please.

You might have picked up on one of the rants coming from wingers today: that the deadline for nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize was February 1, so therefore Obama won on the basis of his campaign for President and a whopping 12 days as President.

On its face that seems like a silly argument, since presumably the winner is selected from the pool of nominees closer in time to today's announcement than to the nominations deadline. (There's also an absurdist quality to it since the difference between February and October isn't likely to satisfy anyone who considers the prize premature.) But we checked it out to make sure. Rachel Slajda reports on how the selection process actually works.

American Police Force drops its plans to run that prison in Hardin, MT.

Sometimes Pat Buchanan can manage to be typically ... well, typically Pat Buchanan and yet be pretty funny. Here's Buchanan from a few moments ago on Michael Steele's early morning walk-on freak out about Obama's Nobel ..."Michael Steele had a Kanye West moment coming out there and saying Beyonce should have gotten the award. He shouldn't have done that."

Here's the video.

What are elected Republicans saying about Obama's Nobel, with a few exceptions, pretty much nothing. Reporters inboxes are crying out for attention across Washington.

We've got a great piece running on Republican ridiculousness and apoplexy over President's Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. But pretty much all of these are from talk show yakkers and political operatives, a few freak show elected members of Congress or really borderline types like Michael Goldfarb. Most high level Republicans -- major elected officeholders, prospective presidential nominees and so forth have been wise and gracious enough to issue appropriate notes of congratulation: McCain, Pawlenty, even Huckabee (sorta), etc.

But the one guy who just couldn't resist the urge to fringe was Michael Steele. He let rip with this early-morning, genuinely Malkinite statement that sounds like the first draft of a script from a late-campaign McCain attack ad from last year.

Yes, Michael Steele is Michael Steele. But still, he's the chairman of the national Republican party. I have to imagine that a lot of Republicans, perhaps even he, wishes he hadn't hit the send button on that one.

From bad to worse, we rank the ethics violations of the House Ways and Means chairman.

Not to be outdone by the other, both Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak are in a race to see who can run farthest to the left in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Considering where he started, Specter has come the farthest, making the whole spectacle a bit comical.

Robert Lowry, a GOP candidate running against Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) has now conceded it was a "mistake" to fire a handgun at a human silhouette target with Wasserman Schultz's initials on it at a recent Republican event.

I'm not sure what to make of this, but the NAACP just sent out a press release congratulating President Obama on his Nobel Prize and noting the storied company in which it puts him:

President Obama joins the likes of Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa in winning the Nobel Peace Prize and is also only the third sitting President to receive this honor, with President Theodore Roosevelt and President Wilson preceding him. President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Al Gore are also Nobel Peace Prize winners after they left the White House.

But the release makes no mention of Martin Luther King, Jr., who at age 35 in 1964 was the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace prize at that time and turned over the prize money to advance the cause of civil rights.

I don't want to overstate the omission because I suspect it's just an inadvertent oversight. But the fact is Obama is connected umbilically to King through so many historical threads. Without King, it's difficult to envision a Obama presidency. Both of them winning Nobels adds to the richness of that historic connection. For all its political salience today, awarding the Nobel to Obama is also a ratification of King -- and of the decision the Nobel committee made 45 years ago.

Could the 2010 mid-term become a referendum on the US Attorneys firing scandal? Well, okay, there are a few other issues in play despite this one being close to my heart. But there may soon be two US Attorney firing scandal figures (on the side of darkness, mind you) running for the House next year.

We already have Tim Griffin, the Rove protege who filled the chair of fired US Attorney Bud Cummins in Arkansas, running against Rep. Vic Snyder. And now we hear that Mary Beth Buchanan, a career piece of work who was involved in the scandal on a few different fronts, is considering a challenge to Rep. Jason Altmire (D) in western Pennsylvania.

It's disappointing that so many Republicans, even those in elected office or of high rank, can't manage to muster even a thin graciousness over this award. But John McCain has risen above that. And Nicole Wallace, who was once in the Bush communications office and later had a similar role in the McCain campaign, was just on MSNBC a bit earlier with a gracious, sane, level-headed response.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK): If Obama was on the fence about more troops for Afghanistan, the Nobel might push him over to the peacenik side!

As you'd imagine, the Nobel committee's announcement has driven many on the right to paroxysms of apoplexy and ridiculousness. Eric Kleefeld rounds up some of the best examples so far.

A long-time reader chimes in ...

My boss is a Nobel Laureate (Physics). So of course I was interested in his reaction because he is fairly plugged in to the thinking of the various Nobel committees, even those outside his domain. Anyway, he was absolutely elated by Obama's win. He sees the award not so much a recognition of anything Obama has accomplished yet, but rather as a very strong statement of support for his agenda, and an endorsement of his approach to international affairs.

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President Obama will travel to Oslo, Norway, to accept his Nobel, the White House confirms.