I nearly lost my breakfast this morning when I saw this little tidbit, written up by Paul Bedard of U.S. News and World Report.  After the Berlin rock concert, billed as a political speech, I didn’t think it possible for Barack Obama, with less than 200 days in the Senate, could possibly top the hubris.   But this new “salute,” designed to be employed by all us little people when the emperor passes,  really does take the cake.

I can just see 75,000 Obots in Mile-High stadium next month in Denver, all lifting their arms in the Big Zero salute, hailing their new leader, while chanting the now utterly banal, “YES, WE CAN.”  Will there be enough Pepto Bismol in the Country to stem the nausea?

George Bush had his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. “Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama’s nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future,” says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc. Husong tells me that he got the idea after seeing the famous Obama-Progress poster by artist Shepherd Fairey. “We wanted to get involved some way,” he says. So, the agency came up with their own a symbol of hope and progress that also plays off Obama’s name. “We thought, ‘Let’s try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,’ ” says Husong. Much thought went into the relatively simple idea. “You interlace your hands in a circle, the interlacing being a symbol of different types of people coming together and the circle a symbol of unity,” he says. Their design, unlike Fairey’s, is free, and Husong is urging people to download it and print it on posters and T-shirts. “We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm.”