David Axelrod privately calls Barack Obama “Black Jesus,” according to Edward Klein’s fantastic new book, The Amateur (p. 59).

“[Barack Obama] is the living, breathing apotheosis of the American melting pot,” Klein quotes Axelrod as saying.

Axelrod, as we know, isn’t alone. According to Klein, Micah Tillman, lecturer in philosophy at the Catholic University of America, called Obama “the Platonic philosopher king we’ve been looking for the past 2,400 years.” And no less an authority than Oprah has called him “The One.”

So was he born in a manger, too?