WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday he was “most surprised and deeply humbled” to win the 2009 Dancing With the Stars televised dance competition, adding that he accepts the honor as “a call to action to confront the dance challenges of the 21st century.”
If you work hard, you can win a Nobel Prize. Or maybe they'll just give you one.
In a brief statement in the White House Rose Garden on Friday, the president said he does not “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, since I did not actually perform a dance routine,” but rather as a recognition of ballroom dance goals he has set for the United States and the world.
Coming on the heels of the president’s somewhat dubious Nobel Peace Prize, the decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise.
“I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many transformative figures that have been honored by this prize,” he said, “and those who competed but were not ultimately successful, such as Tom Delay, who was forced to leave the show last week after dancing the samba with stress fractures in both feet.”
Obama will travel to Television City in Los Angeles, California in December to accept the honor, which includes a mirror ball trophy, the White House said.
The Dancing With the Stars panel of judges said its decision to honor the president was motivated by a combination of boredom and delusional hero worship. “We were just tired of watching bad ballroom dancing week in and week out,” said judge Carrie Ann Inaba, “and Obama is one cute cowboy! Plus, our last names sort of rhyme!”
The White House also reported that President Obama has also won American Idol, first place in a giant pumpkin contest at a state fair, and first prize and “Miss Congeniality” in a Junior Miss pageant in Lubbock, Texas.
