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Opinion: According to Obama, the Guinness in Ireland is much better than the stuff they sell in the U.S.

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It was a happy occasion Monday during President Obama’s hasty visit to Ireland to see what is deemed his ancestral hometown of Moneygall and stop by Ollie Hayes’ pub for a pint.

Yes, during all the official hoo-hah in Dublin the president’s motorcade had a limo problem that paralyzed its movement briefly, driving the security folks crazy for a few minutes (See full video below) because a POTUS is not supposed to be exposed to unsecured public like those who videoed the accident.

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Thousands had waited hours in Moneygall (Pop. 298) to see the Dunham descendant and Obama worked the crowd’s perimeter several times. Obama is a beer fancier and has flown in some favorite Chicago brews at times. And remember when he tried to patch up that confrontation between a Cambridge cop and professor? That wasn’t a Tea Summit.

Monday it’s what happened inside the Moneygall pub that may not go down too smoothly with the American distributors of Ireland’s world-famous Guinness.

The president got to reminiscing good-naturedly about a previous encounter with the tasty liquid.

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‘The first time I had Guinness,’ Obama said, ‘is when I came to the Shannon airport. We were flying into Afghanistan and so stopped in Shannon. It was the middle of the night. And I tried one of these and I realized it tastes so much better here than it does in the States.’

Oops.

Then the commander-in-chief blithely added: ‘What I realized was, is that you guys are -- You’re keeping all the best stuff here!”

And now the video.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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