Moriarty's Irish Pub, Walnut Street, Philadelphia

Moriarty’s had the big, quiet, empty feel of the post celebration; a light crowd for lunch ministered by a weary-eyed jeune fille, the shuffling of hard regulars at the far end of the bar distilling the candidate’s speech for the edification of the equally hard, glass polishing barkeep.

I was waiting for Frank Belloc, combat psychologist, who’d been retained by the networks to counsel reporters and crew members in the wake of a speech by the candidate, whose oratory often brings members of the press into states of swoon and the choking back of tears; unable to steady their cameras or properly mix their sound, even bring themselves to face the lenses. He was still over at the National Constitution Center and his text indicated this could be a ‘three-hankie’ affair and that I should order without him.

The opinions of the men (easily described as the hardscrabble progeny of the ‘built from scratch’ immigrants the Senator described) were lacking of the articulation, heavy with the same sort of incendiary language fountained by the Reverend, but ultimately, and it was important to me at the time, these are a part of the America next in line to be heard. In my own decocting of their premises, it sounded like this, “’Sapretty good fucking speaker; an oraytor, but he’s just trying to cover his ass; youse better believe it.”

I don’t know, you know, what it is, the obsession with the imperfections of man? What hero would bear such scrutiny? Would Achilles have skulked off for good had he been subjected to a news cycle of Patroclus-buggering? Or Lincoln, had Mary Todd been subjected to a modern psychological battery?

The speech was iconic and defining. But to remain an icon in a twenty-first century campaign is to ward off all scrutiny and that is a feat beyond even Barack Obama; scrutiny reveals the merely human, the thing in each of us, no(?) , that clamors for the improvement of the self; the eradication of imperfections even as we rear back the curtains of everyone else’s Friday Night Specials.

But then, perhaps and who is to say that it is not, it is a good thing. More scrutiny will continue. Obama surely has not fully addressed the Wright issues; there remains the accusation that the US of A created the HIV for the eradication of blacks, there remains the commendation of Farrakhan. Obama has proven exemplary in seizing the stage to his advantage, but maybe Maureen Dowd was right in today’s column:

A little disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a good thing. Too much idealism can blind a leader to reality as surely as too much ideology can….

Up until now, Obama and his worshipers have set it up so that he must be so admirable and ideal and perfect and everything we’ve ever wanted that any kind of blemish — even a parking ticket — was regarded as a major failing.

With the Clintons, we expect them to be cheesy on ethics, so no one is ever surprised when they are.

But Saint Obama played the politics of character to an absurd extent. For 14 months, his argument for leading the world has been himself — his exquisitely globalized self.

He should be congratulated on the disappearance of the pedestal. Leaders don’t need to be messiahs.

Or, perhaps, in the unforgettable lyrics of Tina Turner, “We don’t Need Another Hero”.