OBAMA: POSSIBLY EVEN SHREWDER THAN I THOUGHT

A Berlin-based journalist announces in The Washington Post that Barack Obama is making him grumpy:

Barack Obama is on his way to Europe, where an adoring public awaits. But I wonder if the reception would be quite so enthusiastic if Obama's fans across the Atlantic knew a dirty little secret of his remarkable presidential campaign: ... so far he has almost completely refused to answer questions from foreign journalists. When the press plane leaves tonight for his trip, there will be, as far as I know, no foreign media aboard. The Obama campaign has refused multiple requests from international reporters to travel with the candidate....

Is that true? If so, it's brilliant. Why? Well, let's turn to Heather #1, Maureen Dowd, for her gloss on Obama's European trip:

...he must bedazzle three European countries without causing Middle America to begrudge his popularity with a bunch of foreigners.

Exactly -- on balance he wants to be well received, but if he gets nothing but good notices in Europe, people back here in America who don't like him (very much including Dowd) will say he reminds them of Jean Francois Kerry, who, you know, speaks French.

So of course he's snubbing the European press -- he wants them to write a few bad articles about him. Not a lot -- but just enough to make it look as if he's not some Manchurian candidate from Foreignistan.

It's genius. My hat's off to him.

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UPDATE: Embarrassing typo in the last paragraph corrected. I really do know how to spell.