Eliminate inner function which was slowing the outer one down
Eliminate inner function which was slowing the outer one down

Apparently, on every call to decode_object_from_bytes_if_needed(), the inner __decode_string_from_bytes_if_needed() was being reinterpreted over and over again, slowing down the outer function significantly.

berkmancenter/mediacloud,berkmancenter/mediacloud,berkmancenter/mediacloud,berkmancenter/mediacloud,berkmancenter/mediacloud