So the first glimpses came out of the grand stage from which Obama will make his acceptance speech.  According to ABCNews:  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.

H/T to Riley at Virginia Virtucon for the picture:  The Temple of Doom?

My first impression was that it looked like The Brandenburg Gate and that Obama was going to recreate his “successful” Tour de Farce which in retrospect likely was the beginning of the end of his celebrity.  Couldn’t you just see Barack standing in front of those majestic plywood columns saying “Ich bin ein Denverliner?”

Then I took a closer look, and I remembered that Obama will make his acceptance speech on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Picture it, thousands of adoring fans and Obama proclaims, “I have a speech.”

But no, looking closely and reading the reviews of those who’ve seen the stage up close [Charles Krauthammer:  Has He Lost His Mind?], the stage is designed like the ancient Greek theaters.  Greek drama was mainly made up of either tragedy or comedy.

The ancients distinguished between tragedy and comedy in two ways. The first, the Aristotelian tradition, defined tragedy as a drama which concerns better than average people (heroes, kings, gods) who suffer a transition from good fortune to bad fortune, and who speak in an elevated language. Tragedy, in the Aristotelean tradition, serves the purpose of purging the soul of the “fear and pity” which most of us carry around (Aristotle called this catharsis ). Comedy concerns average, or below average, people (people like you and me) who enjoy a transition from bad circumstances to good (but not too good) and who speak everyday language. [SOURCE]

Listening to the fabulous fable fabrication from the Mile High City it’s hard to pinpoint exactly whether the Obama story is tragedy or comedy.  That might depend on the November results.

But, any way you look at it, just like the stage from which he’ll speak, it’s still a facade.