Jagland, flanked by the other four members of the Committee, said they’d never before asked for the return of a Peace Prize, “even from a damnable war-criminal like Kissinger,” but that the 10% drawdown in US troops in Afghanistan the President announced last week capped a period of “non-Peace-Prize-winner-type behavior” in 2011.

“Guantanamo’s still open. There's bombing Libya. There's blowing bin Laden away rather than putting him on trial. Now a few US troops go home, but the US will be occupying Afghanistan until 2014 and beyond. Don’t even get me started on Yemen!”

The Committee awarded Obama the coveted prize in 2009 after he made a series of speeches in the first months of his presidency, which convinced the Peace Prize Committee that he was: “creating a new climate of...multilateral diplomacy...an emphasis on the role of the United Nations...of dialogue and negotiations as instruments for resolving international conflicts...and a vision of world free of nuclear arms.”

“Boy oh boy!” added Jagland. “Did we regret that press release!”

Thorbjorn Jagland and members of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee
celebrate Norway's annual aquavit-tasting festival yesterday
But, he revealed the committee members were all “legless drunk” the day they voted, as it was the start of Norway’s annual aquavit-tasting festival. The “totally toasted” members listened over and over to replays of Obama’s Cairo speech, tearing up and drinking shots to the glorious future: a black man leading America and the world into a new era of peace, hope and goodwill. “For a few hours we were all 18 year-old students again at the beautiful, occasionally sunny University of Bergen! Oh, how we cried for joy!”

The chairman said the committee weren’t “going to be pills” about getting the Prize back because they still “basically really liked” Mr. Obama and that sending it back in a plain package by regular mail would fine if it would save him the embarrassment of a public return. But added Jagland, “things could get nasty” if the committee didn’t see it by the time they announce the new Peace Prize winner in the fall. He and the committee then excused themselves to resume their celebration of Norway’s annual aquavit-tasting festival.

The White House had no comment. It later announced an aggressive new covert CIA initiative to identify and apprehend Al Qaeda operatives in Scandinavia.