According to Reuters,

Barack Obama’s big speech on Thursday night will be delivered from an elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple. The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos’ National Football League team plays. Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama appear from between plywood columns painted off-white, reminiscent of Washington’s Capitol building or even the White House, to accept the party’s nomination for president

Charles Krauthammer, in a brilliant and withering blog post, wrote:

The Berlin folly — in English.

The Superbowl Halftime Show — without the game.

What’s the finish? Maybe Obama’s got Zhang Yimou to do the hidden-rope trick, and have him lifted, Beijing-style, to the heavens when he’s done. Will he reappear three days later at the Bird’s Nest?

Or maybe he’ll just do a Napoleon and coronate himself. By the time Napoleon made himself emperor, he had won the Battles of Lodi, of Arcole, of Rivoli, of the Pyramids and of Marengo. And had promugulated the Napoleonic Code. He had yet to write a single autobiography.

It is not enough, apparently, for The Chosen One to invoke Messiah-like powers in his speeches. It is not enough to portray himself as the moment the world has been waiting for. And it is certainly not enough to believe that by issuing mere statements you have turned back invading Russian tanks. Noooo. Senator Obama has decided he will speak at a stage resembling a Greek temple. Does anyone know if Greek gods use teleprompters?

Steve Schmidt and the McCain campaign, creators of this and this, should have a jolly good time working with this latest material. (Barack Obama, the gift that keeps on giving.)

The fact that the Obama campaign would even attempt this act of adolescent silliness and grandiosity, and that Obama’s team would be so unaware of the mocking it will invite, is a sign of how much Obama’s cult of personality has spread within the campaign’s ranks. If the Obama campaign is in an ecumenical mood, perhaps Obama will enter the miniature Greek temple atop a donkey. One half-expects the 80,000 people in the stadium to be given not Obama signs to hold but palm branches to wave. Or perhaps they will all bow down in unison when The One emerges, chanting, “We’re not worthy.”

Barack Obama’s ambition and arrogance appear to know no earthly limits. What started as a joke is about to become, for Obama, a crisis.