OK, so President Barack Obama’s lightning jaunt to Copenhagen last week was less than successful. Even with Oprah along, the Cheerleader-in-Chief couldn’t clinch the deal for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. It happens.

But now that he knows the way to Denmark, might the American president consider arguing the U.S. case at international climate meetings in Copenhagen in December? The White House said he might, if other heads of state showed up.

“Right now you’ve got a meeting that’s set up for a level not at the head of state level,” presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Air Force One last week. “If it got switched, we would certainly look at coming.”

Those climate talks might need a bit of a boost from the United States. White House climate czarina Carol Browner has said it’s unlikely Obama will be able to sign any U.S. legislation to curb climate change before the December meeting. And that sets up a familiar Catch-22: if there’s no U.S. law in place before Copenhagen climate talks, can the United States commit to anything? And if there IS a U.S. law in place, does the United States have the flexibility to maneuver in these international negotiations?

Climate negotiators already know the answer to the first part of that conundrum; they agreed to the Kyoto Protocol without backing from the U.S. Congress and came home to find no support for this 1997 carbon-capping deal. The United States is still the only industrialized nation not to ratify it.

After the Olympic disappointment — Chicago was the first city of the final four to be cut from the running; Rio won — is Obama’s presence something that U.S. climate negotiators actually want? The global environmental community cheered his election last year after eight years of the George W. Bush administration, but he may not be the rock star on climate that he was then.

And let’s just face it: arriving at climate change talks aboard a fuel hog like Air Force One could send a mixed message — unless the White House commits to offsetting the big plane’s emissions by investing in windmills or tree-planting in a friendly developing country.

So today’s question: would an Obama visit to the Copenhagen climate talks help or hurt the chances for a global deal? Let us know what you think.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Chaiwat Subprasom (demonstration against Barack Obama and other world leaders outside UN climate change talks in Bangkok, Oct 5, 2009)

REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (Obama shakes U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after addressing a U.N. summit on climate change, Sept 22, 2009)

President Obama deeply disappointed his hometown Chicago when he announced that he would not go to Copenhagen next month to personally make the city’s case for hosting the 2016 Olympics, so he and first lady Michelle Obama, who is going in his stead, on Wednesday brought the Olympics to the White House instead.

Former Olympic and paralympic athletes, Chicago officials and local schoolchildren attended the event on the White House lawn, where the president and first lady both spoke and watched judo and gymnastic demonstrations. The president even joined in with some of the athletes, earning a gentle jibe from his wife.

“You should have seen the president in there fencing,” she said. “It was pathetic, but he passed the baton really well.”

Obama said he was too busy working on healthcare reform to travel to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to lobby the International Olympic Committee, but offered an excuse.

“The good news is I’m sending a more compelling superstar to represent the city and country we love, and that is our first lady, Michelle Obama,” he said.

Michelle Obama is hugely popular — her approval ratings exceed her husband’s, which have sunk as he works to push through his sweeping healthcare plan — and it is speculated that she may make the trip to Copenhagen with Oprah WInfrey, the Chicago talk show host and media magnate who is consistently rated one of the most popular and admired Americans. But proponents of the city’s bid worry they will not be enough, as the other three finalists are all sending their heads of state to make their cases to the IOC.

King Juan Carlos of Spain is traveling to Denmark to argue on behalf of Madrid. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is making the case for Rio. Japan is sending its new prime minister and its royal family for Tokyo, backers of Chicago’s bid note bitterly.

“U.S. organizers have Michelle Obama and are working on Oprah Winfrey   — two of the most popular women on the planet,” the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial. “Still, it would escape no one’s notice if Barack Obama took a pass on securing the Olympics for his hometown.

“Mr. President, you need to be there,” the newspaper wrote.

PHOTO CREDITS: U.S. President Barack Obama is joined by first lady, Michelle Obama, and Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner Kersee (R) as they watch a Judo demonstration during an Olympic Games event on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, September 16, 2009 and Obama uses a plastic saber to show his fencing stance. Both from REUTERS/Larry Downing

CHICAGO - Oprah Winfrey has introduced her talk-show audience to the mystery man on whose shoulder she wept during President-elect Barack Obama’s election night victory speech. 

 ”I only saw the back of his head,” Winfrey said of her teary moment caught by TV cameras and flashed repeatedly around the world as she rested her head on the shoulder of a man standing in front of her in a sea of people. 

 At the taping of Friday’s show in her Chicago studio, Winfrey brought the man  – former Reuters reporter Sam Perry — up from the audience for a face-to-face hug. 

 ”We were in the moment,” said Perry, who told Winfrey that her runny mascara did not stain his suit coat. 

 Perry, who lives in Northern California and worked as communications director of the Obama Silicon Valley campaign office, said his cellphone started vibrating the minute the picture hit the airwaves, with friends from several places around the world “telling me that I was standing with you.” 

 But Winfrey said earlier this week she didn’t know who he was but was grateful for “Mr. Man” lending her a shoulder. 

 As to his moment of fame, Perry said, “people were staked out at my house yesterday as well and it just seemed like … we had a moment where the ’stand up for change’ manifest in this election” was “taking over from Joe the Plumber,” a reference to the “everyman” from Ohio toasted by John McCain during the campaign. 

 Winfrey said the crowd was packed in so tight Perry’s was the only shoulder to lean on anyway — and she asked him for permission before she did. 

 The Chicago Sun-Times said Perry is a consultant and is active in E2, a group that advocates good environmental practices for the business community.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young. Oprah Winfrey awaits the arrival of Barack Obama at his election night rally in Chicago, Nov. 4, 2008.

Fiery sermons didn’t drive Barack Obama away from his church, but they did unnerve one other prominent parishioner — media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

According to Newsweek, Winfrey stopped attending Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ in the 1990s in part because she wanted to distance herself from the incendiary views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“She’s always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn’t be smart,” one anymous source tells the magazine. “She’s been around black churches all her life, so Rev. Wright’s anger-filled message didn’t surprise her. But it just wasn’t what she was looking for in a church.”

Wright, of course, is the preacher whose racially charged denunciations of the U.S. government have caused such heartburn for Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination since they were made public in March. Evidently Winfrey, an Obama supporter, wanted to avoid a conflict of her own.

But Oprah had other reasons for leaving as well, another anonymous source tells Newsweek.

“There is the Church of Oprah now,” the longtime friend says. “She has her own following.”

Photo: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok (Winfrey campaigns for Obama in Los Angeles, April 2)