Websites capture wave of transcendent fervor
By Jerome R. Corsi 
"Is this a messianic movement? A cult of personality? Or just good ol' fashioned politics?" Those are the questions an Internet blog called "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" began with one year ago.
By simply highlighting media reports since then – including WND's account of an Obama rally in Seattle – the website has captured the wave of euphoria that has followed the Democratic senator's remarkable rise to the brink of the party's presidential nomination.
The site, laced with photos and magazine covers illustrating the theme, is topped by a Obama quote strategically ripped from a Jan. 7 speech at Dartmouth College just before the New Hampshire Primary in which he told students, "… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote" for Obama.
The blog prominently displays the July 11 cover of the German magazine Der Spiegel, which has a photo of Obama under the title, "The Messiah Factor, Barack Obama and the Yearning for a New America."
Slate.com's Timothy Noah introduced last year his tongue-in-cheek "Obama Messiah Watch," a periodic feature "considering evidence that Obama is the Son of God."
"Is Barack Obama – junior U.S. senator from Illinois, best-selling author, Harvard Law Review editor, Men's Vogue cover model, and "exploratory" presidential candidate – the second coming of our Savior and our Redeemer, Prince of Peace and King of Kings, Jesus Christ?" Noah wrote. "His press coverage suggests we can't dismiss this possibility out of hand."
"I therefore inaugurate the Obama Messiah Watch, which will periodically highlight gratuitously adoring biographical details that appear in newspaper, television and magazine profiles of this other worldly presence in our midst," Noah proclaimed. 
Noah added that readers are invited to submit similar details, such as "Obama walking on water, Obama sating the hunger of 5,000 with five loaves and two fishes – from other Obama profiles. And also, of course, to repent, just in case the hour approacheth nigh."
WND reported how the numerous instances in which Obama has interrupted speeches to attend to a fainting follower has some questioning whether the campaign is employing shills or whether the phenomenon is evidence of fanaticism and cause for concern.
The "Is Barack Obama the Messiah?" blog features a "Transfiguration" image of the Illinois senator – a photo by Michael Edwards that appeared in a New York magazine story published April 16, 2007
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