No wonder the headlines were all about "Obama lands"

Sarah Oliver:

And verily he came among us.

The Obamessiah was too modest to perform any actual miracles on the steps of No10 Downing Street, but yesterday he did speak to a man who thinks he’s God (Tony Blair), a man in need of resurrection (Gordon Brown) and a man leading an exiled people out of the wilderness (David Cameron).

What an almighty fuss, if you’ll forgive the pun, about a junior Senator who’s still only a contender for the White House. You’d think he had already got his bottom on the President’s seat in the Oval Office.

After the Obamania that has spread with the speed of a biblical plague across America and much of mainland Europe, it was finally Britain’s turn. But following eight countries in seven days and a carbon footprint of 10,000 air miles, Barack Obama had to persuade us he was here to do more than just change planes on the way home.

And that was always going to be tricky, because this visit was conducted mainly behind closed doors. There was no address to the masses as there had been in Berlin (but then, the Germans do like a mass rally...) and no double-handed Press conference with the Premier, as there was with President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.

As one of his accompanying Press corps was overheard saying to colleagues: ‘Hey, guys, another three handshakes and we’re home.’

So what did we get? Um, not much.

...

That seems to be the substance of the visits. Of course most of these guys overlooked the Obama gaffes. Fortunately John McCain caught many of them and has been busy turning out ads to highlight them. You can catch one of them in the post below.