From Jocksniffer to Bootlicker

If you ever needed a better example why sportswriters should stick to covering sports, look no further than this love note from Lil' Mikey Lupica to Barack Obama. Absolutely embarrassing.

Only it isn't enough for Barack Obama, the most important American President in nearly 80 years, to fix just Detroit, just banks and insurance companies of New York City, erase the unemployment here and in California and Florida and everywhere else.

It is also this: Once again being a President we can send out to the world without embarrassment, or fear. That is why this past week mattered so much in Europe. Having him be the face and voice of this country mattered, last week and next week and for a long time, as he restores this country's good name the way he tries to restore its confidence.

Yes, Obama is so popular around the globe the folks in Turkey are telling him to go home.

Meanwhile, or most important president in 80 years doesn't even realize Austrian isn't a language. Yes, finally a president we can all be proud of.

He is trying to do what George W. Bush never did, and that means build relationships around the world. But then the previous President was somebody who had no interest in a foreign policy that didn't involve empty threats or tough talk or finishing off Saddam Hussein because his dad never did.

In a world now obsessed with currency, Barack Obama created some with the other world leaders, first in England and then in France and Sunday in the Czech Republic. This was an American President who didn't think working with NATO was somehow beneath him.

Speaking of NATO, I'm so glad "our friends" are all on board with our effort in Afghanistan. Those 12 trainers from Spain will sure come in handy. Aren't you feeling the love?

There is no new law passed saying you have to agree with everything he says on the world stage, about Afghanistan or even that squirrely little wing nut in North Korea. But it was clear over the past week that these other world leaders, the smart ones, anyway, want to work with him. They want to respect the office of the President again - the one essentially shared for eight years by Bush and his war-loving vice president, Dick Cheney - after eight years when respect for the office and for this country seemed to shrink to the size of an iPod.

Could be worse. It could have shrunk to the size of Lil' Mikey Lupica.

They want him to succeed the way the majority of the country wants him to succeed, all the Americans who don't side with the screamers from the right, the ones who sell themselves as real patriots as they all seem to be selling books. Between crying jags, anyway.

These are the ones who giddily campaign against Obama day after day, on radio and on television, because it is good for ratings and good for business. And that is patriotism for suckers.

As opposed to what, the patriotism the left showed for eight years by calling Bush a murderer, the same way the left now says conservatives want to kill cops?

I guess that's Lupica's idea of patriotism.

The ones for whom he can't do anything right will say these were just more words from Obama, that words are all he is. It means they don't know what they saw in Europe last week, or what they heard, from a real American President, one who thinks his job is building relationships instead of doing what Bush did: tearing them down. But then everybody had to be good at something.

I guess Lupica missed those riots in Europe last week. Must have been too busy sniffing jockstraps to notice.