Mike,
The evidence that it's veneration and not simply popularity of a performer's talent comes from the fact that people who are performers (whether in sports, music, movies, or what-have-you) are being treated as if they are authorities on subjects outside their realm of skill.
For instance: Bono from U2. You can argue over whether he's got amazing musical talent all day long (and if you argued that he was pretty good up until about 1992, and has sucked since then, you'd even be right). But there's no doubt that he and his band have what it takes to sell records. But Bono, a singer, was asked by the General Secretary of the UN to end the Lebanon crisis. Because obviously singing on-stage and managing the geopolitical situation in an unstable region require exactly the same skills.
Almost every actor in Hollywood has loud opinion on politics, and the American public listens. Not because they have sat down and thought out the issue that the actor is talking about, and they find the actor's argument to be cogent, but because they saw Tomb Raider, and they think that anyone with t-shirt padding like Angelina Jolie probably has all of the answers...
When artists, actors, musicians, and sports figures are admired for their art, acting, music, and athletic ability, that's appreciation. When they are assumed to be authorities on subjects outside their skill set, simply because of their fame, that's veneration.
Would anyone honestly care about what Bono things of the Lebanon crisis, if he weren't front man for a multi-million-album band? If he were a paper-hat-wearing burger jockey from Des Moines, would Kofi have asked him to fix the middle east?
Closer to current events: Would there be such nationwide shock and outrage over Michael Vick's alleged dog-fighting ring, if people didn't get so wrapped up in sports figures that they expect them to be better than everyone else?
-BP
