Ben Smith links this hot-‘n-heavy behind the scenes report from Bild, a German tabloid, wherein writer Judith Bonesky describes the workout she shared yesterday in a Berlin hotel gym with Barack Obama. Some samples from the article:
Barack Obama is wearing a grey t-shirt, black tracksuit bottoms – and a great smile!
“Hi, how’s it going?“ asks Obama in his deep voice. My heart beats.
Obama (with toned arms and a strong back) puts on his headphones…
[He] puts his arm across my shoulder. I put my arm around his hip – wow, he didn’t even sweat! WHAT A MAN!
Now that’s fawning coverage from Germany’s top selling paper. (In a country of just 80 million people, Bild boasts a circulation of over 3.5 million, almost as much as the New York Post, Daily News and USA Today combined.)
Maybe it’s Friday afternoon nostalgia speaking, but Bild’s crush-note reminds me of a little piece from my college paper by a student who, one day during the 2004 New Hampshire primary, did his morning swim team practice alongside Wesley Clark. As far as I know, it’s the only reportorial (and I use that word very loosely) account of that candidate’s regular workout routine. Clark turned down actual media requests to observe his swims with one of my favorite politician quotes of all time: “No beefcake.”
Funny thing is, reading our old Clark item for the first time in over four years, there’s at least one obvious difference. I seem to remember editing out the nitty-gritty about the candidate’s physique and precise regimen, thinking that information was unbecoming or invasive or something—especially in the pre-CitJo days when our author was just an uncredentialed guy who happened to be there. Bild’s correspondent too seems to have been more a lucky bystander than an declared reporter.
And her editor left all the good stuff in. No wonder they have all those readers.
Clint Hendler is the managing editor of Mother Jones, and a former deputy editor of CJR.