Earth's New Deity Has an Amen Corner

Newsweek's Evan Thomas was on "Hardball" with Chris Matthews on Friday, which I never watch, but if I had I would have seen ass-kissing taken to a new level of, well, worship.

Newsbusters has the transcript, and a review.

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas brought adulation over President Obama’s Cairo speech to a whole new level on Friday, declaring on MSNBC: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Yeah. He really said "God."

Thomas, appearing on Hardball with Chris Matthews, was reacting to a preceding monologue in which Matthews praised Obama’s speech: "I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful...But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility ... The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world."

John Hindraker at Powerline notes that Evan Thomas is emblematic of the Newsweek drift into socialist irrelevance

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham has announced that he wants to turn the magazine into a journal of liberal opinion with a smaller circulation. I'm not sure that readers will be able to tell the difference between the Newsweek of recent years and the forthcoming "journal of liberal opinion," but to the extent they notice any change, it's a sure bet that circulation will decline.

And as for Thomas' fawning adulation of The One, Hindraker says

Yes, that's Obama all right--"standing above the world." Good Lord. Reporters are often compared to teen-age girls with crushes on Obama, but, as the father of three present, former or about-to-be teen-age girls, I object to the analogy. I personally have never seen a teen-age girl make a fool of herself over a boy the way many--most--mainstream reporters have over Barack Obama.

And here's how National Review sees the new Newsweek (a parody cover):