Obama Indulgences

Victor Davis Hanson is flummoxed by elite support for Obama:

To sum up, Obama offers a reassuring sense of self-image: one can still maintain all the current mechanisms one is accustomed to in ensuring privilege, but visible support for Obama offers a sense of atonement and alleviation of guilt at rather modest cost...Somehow an Obama sticker, sign on the lawn, or a lapel button has become the equivalent of a crucifix around the neck of a prosperous 16th-century burgher: easy fides of inner good and a valuable totem in reconciling the apparent irreconcilable.

Hilzoy counters. It may be that, despite tax hikes, many simply think he'd be a better president - temperamentally, diplomatically, and in terms of overcoming some of the polarization that Bush and Rove fomented for their own purposes.