Considering Cairo

Like many folks, I took time to assess the president's speech. The short answer: he overreached, forgetting basic human nature, as VDH notes. (I don't always agree with VDH--we part company over the Iraq war, for instance--but he writes a thoughtful piece at the link.)

It hasn't taken me ANY time at all, however, to decide what I think of some people's reaction to the speech:

CHRIS MATTHEWS (HOST):Evan Thomas is editor at large for Newsweek magazine. Evan, you remember 1984. It wasn't 100 years ago. Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama's had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he, he has a very different job from ... Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is - we are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something, I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above above the world, he's sort of God.

This is the epitome of the worldview that underlies Obama's rapturous rhetoric. The annoying chant, "yes, we can," reflects the humanistic belief that nothing is impossible, there are no insurmountable obstacles on the ever-upward journey to a blissful utopia. Problem is, the escalator myth is just that. We're not rising to a paradise; we fell from one. Ever since, we've sought godlike control over our own destiny... and worshiped mere men who claimed that power:

On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man."
Acts 12:21-22

That the editor of a prominent news magazine is apparently swept up by this ancient temptation is a sign, yet again, of the level of repentence this nation (and, given Obama's fawning audiences, the world) needs to experience. Those who will not be ruled by God will inevitably be ruled by men.

(HT: multiple sources... not everyone out there is asleep!)