The President’s eight-day trip to Europe comes at arguably the best and worst time for the Administration:

Nice timing After a string of tough news cycles, getting out of town for a bit will be a welcome change of scenery – and messaging – for a White House that at times seems overly engaged with inside-the-Beltway politics (like yesterday’s off-message visit with House Democrats).

Worst timing President Obama is facing an amazing number of pending domestic challenges that require his handholding. As Chris Cillizza smartly writes in his daily White House Cheat Sheet:

Obama must also appear mindful of the ongoing difficulties in the United States — problems that won’t simply disappear when he heads across the ocean. Most importantly, the House and Senate will each vote on his budget blueprint later this week and, although the true fights over his more controversial proposals (healthcare, climate change) won’t come until later this year, any significant defection among moderate to conservative Democrats could be taken as a sign of problems to come for the President.

I would add to that the floods in Fargo-Moorhead and the impending auto industry layoffs (likely made more imminent – and more Obama’s problem – after Monday’s announcement). How the President manages those domestic news events while overseas for the next week will be fascinating – and a true test of the White House press office.

Also, in addition to being on the look out for overseas gaffes (as I wrote about here), I’m curious to know whether President Obama visits US troops at Landstuhl. In a bizarre switcheroo last summer, his campaign originally planned to make a stop there, but scrapped the visit at the last minute in what became an embarrassing episode that eclipsed much of an otherwise flawless trip. Presumptively Team Obama learned its lesson and won’t snub US troops twice. No visit has been announced, but since he is making time for a French town hall while he’s in Strasbourg for two days, if he does not make the quick helo lift to visit the nearby US troops, he may be subjected to scores of preventable criticism.