Messiah complex

Dana Milbank reports that Obama told a House delegation yesterday: “This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for,” adding: “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.”

Yes, indeed, a return to American tradition, particularly the American tradition identified by Daniel Walker Howe in his Pulitzer-winning What Hath God Wrought , that is the tradition of modeling political campaigns on camp meeting revivals.