Following President Obama’s one-​​day whirl­wind visit to Ottawa yes­ter­day, which was accom­pa­nied by much gush­ing in the Canadian press, sev­eral com­men­ta­tors are won­der­ing whether Canadians might love the new U.S. leader a lit­tle too much.

As Andrew Coyne blogged for Macleans​.ca:

This is Just. So. Embarrassing. If there is any­thing less attrac­tive than the anti-​​American streak in our national char­ac­ter — a trait made worse, one sus­pects, for our neigh­bours’ sunny indif­fer­ence to our seething — it is our ten­dency to pros­trate our­selves before American celebri­ties. And they don’t get any more celebri­tous than Barack Obama.

In the Globe and Mail, colum­nist Margaret Wente wrote:

Greetings, Mr. President!

Welcome to Canada! I can’t tell you how thrilled we are that you are com­ing up to see us, if only just for lunch. Judging by the media frenzy, your visit ranks right up there with the Second Coming. My girl­friends haven’t been this excited since the Beatles came to town (not that you’d remem­ber them). They, too, were more pop­u­lar than Jesus.

And writ­ing in the Vancouver Sun, reporter Barbara Yaffe con­tended that:

Excitement in Ottawa around the pres­i­den­tial visit could not have been greater had the guest of hon­our been Mick Jagger, the Queen or Santa Claus.

At least Obama gave some love back to his new Canadian friends. “I love this coun­try,” he said, “and I don’t think we could have a bet­ter friend and ally.”