Celebrate the Coming of Dear Leader

Check out the new metro cards Washington DC is issuing to commemorate Inauguration Day. Put this with the hagiographies passing as news pieces put out by Time, Newsweek, and NBC; the commemorative coin sets private "mints" are rushing out; the school text books already including large chapters on the wondrous works of the One; and the sure-to-be-omnipresent Barack channel on YouTube which will pass off propaganda as public information, and you have, at the very least, an unprecedented display of love and devotion to an untried leader. This is only one aspect of the "change" Obama is bringing, to the presidency as an institution, and to the political culture of the nation.

What do you think so far?

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Innes: Let me quote from a comment below by Mr. Khan, one of our readers: "I think fawning in general is deplorable as a response to any political figure. The best response any mortal should hope for is a sort of manly admiration, but this is customarily awarded at the end of the race. No Olympian claims gold for winning a spot on the roster."

This brings to mind a story I once heard of a young preacher (Was it John Perkins or E.V. Hill? I can't recall.) who went springing full of confidence up into the pulpit for his first sermon. As he struggled through it, it became clear to him and to everyone in the congregation that he was unprepared for the work that morning. Greatly humbled by the experience, he descended slowly from the pulpit at the end of the service and brought himself to the back of the church where he greeted people as they left. An old woman took his hand and said, "Preacher, if you'd gone up into the pulpit the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up."

Mr. Khan's remark reminds me more directly of King Ahab's advice to Ben-Hadad, the king of Aram: "One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off" (1 Kings 20:11).