President Barack Obama, wife Michelle and their two daughters touched lives in simple ways during a private stay in the French capital that closed out a six-day presidential tour rich in history, symbolism and giant messages to the world.

“Giant messages to the world”?

Seriously?

(Sigh.)

Media scrutiny of the family was intense. The French are confirmed fans of the Obamas, whose politics and elegant style conform to their ideal vision of the United States. The couple makes frequent appearances on the covers of French magazines. Michelle Obama, whose wardrobe choices are analyzed, gets an A-plus for sartorial glamor, natural poise and sheer intelligence.

No word on their appreciation for her mad bat’leth skillz.

Boudon was over the moon.

The table had been reserved 10 days earlier but he only knew his guests were the Obamas that morning.

“I saw God before me,” he said, “because I saw this smile that a million people have seen around the world. I saw her (Michelle) radiant. … It’s idiotic, but it’s like that.”

“Idiotic” is an appropriate choice of words. As are “deluded”, “creepy”, “cult-like”, and “You’ll wanna step back, I’m calling down a divine lightning strike right here“.

On Sunday morning, it was the Pompidou Center, the modern art mecca in central Paris, where two exhibitions are currently featured, the works of American sculptor Alexander Calder and Vassily Kandinsky, the Russian-born painter who helped pioneer abstract art.

The family spent some 90 minutes inside the museum, distinguished by its exposed colored piping, and at one point the president was seen waving from a top-floor glassed-in walkway that provides a sweeping view of the city.

Okay, I may ridicule the Holy Couple, but I do have to give Them props for having enough sense not to waste Their time on modern “art”.

But it was the few brief minutes that Obama spent with 61-year-old Gerard Daldoss and other drivers in the presidential motorcade that mattered.

Before climbing into his limousine in the Pompidou Center’s underground parking garage, Obama shook the men’s hands, then posed for a group photo.

“It’s fantastic. What a beautiful souvenir!” exclaimed a beaming Daldoss.

He said he has worked in motorcades for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush without ever getting such hands-on gratitude. [Clinton's hands were probably otherwise occupied - ed.]

“The others were nice but not more than that,” Daldoss said. “I retire in a few months. This is a magnificent mission.”

“And I’ll never wash this hand again, as long as I live!!!”

We had the girls to ourselves for only a few moments before Mom, Dad and Michelle’s mother, Marian Robinson, joined us. Everyone stood, smiled, greeted, shook hands, smiled—the usual drill when host and hostess greet their guests. This had somewhat the feel of an extra-polite diplomatic meeting as the adult Obamas totaled 15 handshakes. I half-expected us to fold our hands and begin bowing…

Impressions: I had met Obama before he became president, but not Michelle. I was struck by her warmth and a sense that she has no need to be the center of attention. (This cannot be said of all first ladies.) Her mother was similarly warm, if a bit shy. Why wouldn’t she be? Although no stranger to her daughter’s and son-in-law’s public life, no sensible civilian would enter a room of columnists without wondering whether the staff doctor stocks antivenom. I was also struck by how lean and fit everyone is. The Obamas are thin people, a sight to behold in the age of obesity.

What struck me most was his immense calm. I kept looking for fissures in the façade, some signal that the cool cat is a defense mechanism or some tactical ploy to deflect or defuse an opponent. Nary a crack. You may as well try to find the Dalai Lama’s Achilles heel. I suspect that if you cut Obama open, you’d find a little Buddha sitting inside, smiling.

Or maybe you’d just find a bunch of squishy and slimy internal organs that you’ve now let loose to flop out and dangle to the floor - that’s would happen with any ordinary human you happened to cut open, at least.

Metaphor: FAIL.

There is nothing unique about a presidential takeoff. An airplane is an airplane. Except! The flight attendants on Air Force One don’t nag you about stuffing every little thing under the seat in front of you. Your seat doesn’t have to be in the upright position, nor does your tray have to be in the locked position. I briefly considered walking around during takeoff, rather than repeating The Lord’s Prayer as I usually do, just to mock death because I probably could.

But of course – the Lightworker protects from harm all those who are privileged to travel in His aura!

The rest of the article is similarly fawning and unserious, but this part was off-putting:

You know they’re adorable. You’ve seen a thousand pictures and video clips. Forget all that. This is when you need Spanish so that you can add the absolute superlative -isima to the end of adorable. They are that adorable. Uninhibited and guileless, they seemed utterly at ease with five strangers— especially, may I say, with the sole female, who just happened to have a little green Ugly Doll hanging from her purple purse, very similar to one spotted several weeks ago on Sasha’s book bag.

The guys may talk football, leaving some women reporters clueless, but guys don’t know jack about the Ugly Doll fashion phenom begun by one Sasha Obama several weeks ago. I wouldn’t call my Ugly Doll “bait” exactly, but I might call it strategy. As a conversation starter, it worked.

Parker obviously meant it to be “bait” to lure a young child into a conversation, or else she wouldn’t have guiltily attempted to explain it away…not that calling what she did ”strategy” makes it any more palatable.   If I read her right, she used a child’s innocent interests in an attempt to gain the child’s trust and thereby secure additional access to the child’s father.

And journalists wonder why so many people distrust if not loathe them?

[via Michelle Malkin]

But Sayed Ahmad Safi, the spokesman for Laghman’s governor, said that government intelligence reports indicated 11 of the dead were civilians, including three children and two females. Two of the dead were militants, he said.

Abdul Khaliq Hussaini, a member of parliament who represents Laghman, said he believed 16 people had been killed, including 11 civilians. The site of the raid — the village of Guloch — lies 40 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul….

The issue also sparks strong emotions among average Afghans and threatens to turn civilians against the international military mission.

“I’m ready to start jihad against the Americans,” an unidentified Afghan man told a Kabul TV station during a protest Saturday in the capital of Laghman.

Earlier Saturday, Hamididan Abdul Rahmzai, the head of the provincial council in Laghman, said village elders arrived at his office hours after the early morning operation to complain that the 15 killed were innocent civilians.

During a call from an Associated Press reporter, Rahmzai relayed questions to the village elders directly, who angrily shouted that they would swear on the Quran, the Muslim holy book, that all those killed were civilians. The elders claimed that women and children were among the dead.

The villagers told Rahmzai that they are shepherds and have no ties to militants.

…and our righteous, brother-loving, conflict-resolutionizing peace activists are up in arms over the atrocity, calling down the condemnation of the world on the new President and demanding He be impeached for war crimes.

Uhh…

Oh…wait…they’re not…

But wait, it killed children–what Rethuglicans and Wingnuts call “collateral damage”. The anti-warriors must be horrified and screaming about this egregious use of force against civilians, right?

Let’s see.

First, we have this quote from Code Pink about the murder of innocents who has vowed to keep an eye on Obama:

…

Ok, what about International A.N.S.W.E.R? They must be appalled and had this to say:

…

What about Not In Our Name? They hate war. Oops, their website is gone inactive.

Hmmm…OK, you know that Iraq Veterans Against the War had something to say about the murderous attack by the Obama administration:

…

Er, what about Veterans for Peace, they have a nice Yes We Can! pic on their front page but they say nothing.

Alright, someone has to have actually stuck by their convictions and is calling out the new President for doing exactly what George Bush did.

United for Peace and Justice, the Campus Anti-War Network website is off back up but says nothing and no other groups thought it important enough to even post anything about the deaths of children at the hands of the military industrial complex.

But of course. The war protests have never really been about the war, as much as about opposing and undermining Dubya at every turn as payback for the 2000 election, and recreating the self-indulgent self-importance of the nihilist left’s 1960s glory days.  With Dubya now out of office, opposing his actions is irrelevant, and with Øbama in the Oval Office, the left can now assert moral superiority by gushing about how His election proves we have overcome the racism that we would still be saddled with as a nation were it not for their efforts (and never you mind that voting for a candidate because of the color of his skin rather than the merits of his policies, exulting in the specialness and momentousness and historicalness His hue alone imparted to His November victory, and then repeatedly prefixing the title “President” with the qualifier “First Black”, is emphatically not demonstrating colorblindedness).

This bye being given to the new President is hypocritical, but understandable when you know what motivated the protests against similar things that happened under Bush.  The question is, how many flip-flops on campaign promises and repeats of Bush policies and mistakes will the sheeple put up with before they turn against Him?

Say what you will about what a lousy candidate the GOP pushed on us this year as an alternative – and I do, frequently – but for all his many faults nobody actually worships McCain.