German cops go googly-eyed for Obama.
AP Photo

Point is that Euro lovin' takes many forms, and, as we ratchet down into the electoral trench, it promises to get weirder. One hot-and-bothered Berlin tabloid reporter wangled permission to work out in the hotel gym with Obama just before the weekend, drooling over the fact that he didn't sweat and was "top-fit." As we know, this is special German code for "he is super hunky." Her editors ran a picture of her with the candidate on page one.    

Whatever. Think of it as the Jerry Lewis-in-France thing. We thought he was funny. They thought he was a genius and invited him to universities to discuss his "oeuvre." 

But of the many slavish and nutty effects that Obama's blitzkrieg had on the Europeans, the non-voting Euro demographic that the candidate's appearance most immediately and thoroughly galvanized was that of the German police.   

The cops put a chopper over every venue, whether he was in the hotel, in the chancellor's office, or in the Restaurant Borchardt, where he ate dinner after his speech. If Obama was anywhere, the chopper was there. If he was en route, the chopper was en route. If the chopper wasn't there, he wasn't there. (The paparazzi just followed the chopper.)

Fair enough, as a security measure. If he had been in Baghdad. But he wasn't.   

Arguably, though, the single nuttiest expression of German police love for our presidential candidate was the undertaking of a hand search--in the two hours before the Berlin speech--of approximately 20,000 members of the front-standing audience. There was a security perimeter manned by German cops and U.S. Secret Service personnel around the stage. There was an additional perimeter set up around the 20,000 people closest to the stage, although, of course, nobody could get close to the stage because of the first security perimeter.   

To gain access to the area within the second security perimeter, eight metal-detection portals were set up in white tents. The police forced every single person through them, confiscating all liquids and gels and anything resembling a weapon.   

This included, of course, my Swiss Army knife. I'd been unaware that the police were going to be searching 20,000 of us along the criteria of a pre-boarding security screening at an airport, and had kept it in my pocket.   

Conversation went like this:

Security guard: "This is a stabbing weapon." 

Me: "What? It's a Swiss Army knife."

Security guard: "This is a stabbing weapon. You can take it back, or you can throw it in the Dumpster." 

Me: "Can't you take it? That way, it won't go to waste."

He was moved by this for a second. Then he said, "If I take it I'll be fired."   

With that, he tossed it in the Dumpster.   

A U.S. Secret Service officer--blue suit, gold lapel pin, excellent tie, gray short-cropped hair--stood watching the screening area. 

"Let me ask you a question about Swiss Army knives," I said. "Just lost one."   

"I'm watching the screening for other stuff," he said affably, meaning he was profiling the people who came through the screening for other, more dangerous exhibitions of possible threat. "But usually, if people have a Leatherman or Swiss Army knife or something like that that they use for work, like, say, cameramen, or journalists, we let it go."

In the end, of course, the knife was a cheap price to pay for a ticket to the spectacle. And as an American working in Europe, I'm comforted to know that Obama's multiple charms don't just reach every single female between 18 and 85 on our continent, the French president, the English prime minister, their parliaments, and their various constituencies. His charms also extend to the hard-boiled Berlin cops.