Broadcast veteran Barbara Walters has finally admitted what many news watchers have thought about people in the media and their adoration of Barack Obama.
"We thought that he was going to be – I shouldn't say this at Christmastime – but the next messiah," Walters told CNN's Piers Morgan Tuesday night.
The response came after Morgan asked the co-host of "The View" why Obama has faced so much opposition, and "Why is he struggling so much to really fulfill the great flame of ambition and excitement that he was elected on originally in 2009?"
"He made so many promises," she explained, then making the messiah comment.
TRENDING: St. Patrick's role on the 'external hard drive'
"And the whole Obamacare, or whatever you want to call it, that Affordable Health Act, it just hasn't worked for him, and he's stumbled around on it, and people feel very disappointed because they expected more."
She added: "It's very difficult when the expectations for you are very high. You're almost better off when they are low and then they rise and rise. His were very high and they've dropped. But you know? He still has several years to go. What does he have, three years more, Piers? And, you know, there will be a lot of changes, one thinks in that time."
Radio host Rush Limbaugh couldn't help but weigh in on Walters' messianic view of Obama.
"This is how the left promoted Obama. It's how he promoted himself, and it's how a lot of voters saw him," Limbaugh explained Wednesday on his national program.
"Believe me, she's a believer. She's not mocking or laughing at this. ... If she were mocking it, she wouldn't have paused and begged for understanding at Christmastime."
"Who in their right mind would put this much on any politician?" he continued. "She's not uncommon here ... among people in the media. It's all rooted in race and sympathy. It's all related to surface things. ... It was all blind faith."
Limbaugh said Americans shouldn't doubt "that these sycophants in the media that bought hook, line and sinker this messiah business" actually considered Obama their political savior.
"He was the messiah," he noted. "He had come to save them, to absolve them, to once again assert them upon the pedestals of power. That's exactly how they saw him."
Walters is just the latest media star to wax biblical when it comes to perception of the president.
As WND reported this month, MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews sounded somewhat scriptural when he described Obama coming to the MSNBC studios to do an interview with him.
Matthews gleefully told his reporter colleagues after the interview: "He came amongst us."
In 2008, Matthews said of Obama: "I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often."
Thursday night, liberal pundits Howard Fineman of the Huffington Post and David Corn of Mother Jones joined Matthews for a post-interview analysis.
Fineman noted the president appeared to be "dealing with complexities" of government and said, "Change you can believe in, but making change happen is hard."
Corn said he "saw a president who remains frustrated with the political media culture that he has to work within and that he's looking to rally people, students, reporters, people within the media."
"David Corn, you skeptic, he came to us today. He came amongst us," Matthews replied.
Corn responded that Obama is "trying to rally people behind this vision that he's promoting for a couple years."
Columnist Mary Katharine Ham got right to the point of Matthews' reaction to Obama.
"And, lo, the president came upon them, and the glory of the president shone round about them: and they were sore afraid," she wrote, satirizing on the story of the birth of Jesus in the New Testament.
Matthews, before the interview, had been giddy, saying he got "Christmas Eve excitement" about the interview.
Messianic references to Obama seem to be multiplying of late. It was just days ago when WND reported a new lesson plan for American school students, offered on an open marketplace for educators, was suggesting such a reference.
The lesson, created by Sherece Bennett, is based on the book "Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope" by Nikki Grimes.
Kyle Olson reported the plan on his Education Action Group website, commenting that it casts Obama "in a messianic light. Literally."
In one passage, Olson points out, a young Obama sees beggars and wonders, "Will I ever be able to help people like these?'"
"Hope hung deep inside of him," the book says.
Olson quotes another section: "Before dawn each morning, Barry rose – his mother's voice driving him from dream land. 'Time for learning English grammar and the Golden Rule. Be honest, be kind, be fair,' she taught him."