AP writer seeks inspiration in trashy romances

This is supposed to be a “news” story about the Obama family trip to Paris.  It strikes me as coming much closer to a bad bodice ripper, with scary Messianic overtones:

People gawked and cameras clicked as the Obamas cut a wide figure through the French capital even while confined to a presidential motorcade. It was more personal for the few kept not so distant — the restaurant owner who “saw God,” the chauffeur reveling in a “magnificent mission.”

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.

[snip]

Michelle Obama, whose wardrobe choices are analyzed, gets an A-plus [from the French] for sartorial glamor, natural poise and sheer intelligence.

But the common touch the first American couple represents, so antithetical to the traditional pomp and circumstance of French heads of state, sets them apart.

[snip]

Boudon [a restaurant owner] was over the moon.

[snip]

“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.”

[snip]

Even the conservative Sarkozy appreciates Obama’s personal style and, multiplying direct contact with citizens, is desanctifying the office.

Barf.

By the way, have any of you noticed that while George Bush was lambasted for the fact that he’d never seen the world, Obama gets a free pass for the fact that (as far as I know) his international travels consisted for two years in an Indonesian madrassa when he was a kid, plus short visit to an obscure African village?  Apparently that’s enough to make him a sophisticate, and have people drooling over his big-boned woman.