Spaketh He Who Is to a choir of Democrats, “[T]his is the moment, as Nancy [Pelosi] noted, that the world is waiting for.” But wait, says Jake Tapper, rushing to the rescue. He didn’t mean it the way it sounds. He’s not claiming to be the incarnation of America’s “best traditions;” he’s merely claiming to be a blank screen on which the Andrew Sullivans and Doug Kmiecs of the world can project their fondest hopes and dreams — which is true enough, as even Hillary once acknowledged.

Feel better now? All geared up for Commander-in-Chief Blank Screen?

“His entire point of that riff was that the campaign is NOT about him,” says a House Democratic staffer. The Post “left out the important first half of the sentence which was something along the lines of ‘it has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. Its about America. I have just become a symbol.'”

Other staffers with whom I spoke back that up, and a Democratic Congressman who isn’t a particular fan of Obama agrees, saying that Obama preceded that quote with something along the lines of, ‘Those people in Germany weren’t excited about me. They were excited by the prospect of America getting back to being all it could be.'”

I.e. Obamamania isn’t about policy, it’s about a feeling, something both sides already know full well even though the left occasionally likes to flatter its intellectual pretensions by lamenting the lack of Substance that comes with mouthing lowest-common-denominator platitudes to a crowd of third-way socialists in Berlin. Free advice for Obama: If even Olbermann’s regulars think it’s time for a hubris check, it’s time for a hubris check.

Update: For all your one-stop hubris shopping needs, it’s “Audacity Watch.” Belated exit question: We know, per Obama’s dumbest and most disingenuous defenders, that any accusation of ego is a racist smear. Does that mean Dana Milbank’s a racist too?