Is Obama a Micromanager?

On August 12, the Wall Street Journal carried a feature article entitled "A President as Micromanager: How Much Detail is Enough?" The word "micromanager" is a pejorative, one that carries a lot of baggage.
Micromanagers are, according to Webster's, people who "manage with great or excessive control, or attention to details." Nobody, but nobody, likes working for a micromanager. So is Obama is the kind of guy who just loves to live in the weeds and who insists on controlling what other people do? Or is he an especially intelligent, curious guy in a mission-critical job who has high expectations of his staff, and who is able to absorb more information than the average mortal?
In 2004, I wrote an HBR case study about a PR manager named Shelley who suffers under a micromanaging CEO named George. She's a professional who knows how to produce, but George wants her to do things his way. The boss loves to tell her how to do her job, including how to write press releases. He's driving her straight up a wall. Responding to the case, one commentator -- Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute -- noted that "the difference between setting direction and micromanagement is knowing when to get involved and when to get out of the way."
Many agree that in attempting to deal with the hundreds of problems on his plate, Obama is trying to take on too much, too fast, or that he's trying to absorb too much information at once - but that's not the same as micromanaging, which is really about the urge to control others. According to the WSJ article, Obama wants to know the fine details about economics - including details about different forms of credit relative to the risk, derivatives, and the vagaries of financial regulation. Reading the article, it sounded to me like Obama wanted to make sure his people got him the right information; that he knows the issues; that he heard opposing viewpoints; and that he is doing a pretty good job of keeping up to speed on events. Comparing this kind of behavior to that his predecessor, I feel relatively comfortable.
What do you think? Is Obama a micromanager? and if he isn't, then what kind of manager is he?