IMMANENTIZING THE ESCHATON. Victor Davis Hanson's had a good run with Reverend Wright, but he seems ready (or medically advised, perhaps) to pack it in, as shown by his "Wright Postmortem."

Hanson assumes that his own extremely unflattering interpretation of events is shared by Obama supporters, but believes they "have invested too much in Obama and have come too far to accept anything that might end his candidacy," and "privately they acknowledge" (by what evidence he doesn't say) that their man "made a devil’s bargain with a racist," is "inured to de rigueur anti-American speech" and is "hardly a new politician, but instead a very gifted and charismatic actor."

Despite their presumed agreement with Hanson's dire characterization, he predicts they will stick with Obama because he "offers them symbolic capital, making them liked abroad and free of guilt at home... I think he will weather the current storm and get the nomination. Obama evokes pure emotion and raw politics now, and logic, honesty, and accountability have little to do with his nomination bid."

You may wonder why so committed an Obama enemy as Hanson has come to so downcast a conclusion. Obama has indeed taken a hit, and though it is not fatal it has given Republicans some valuable provender and target practice for the general election should Obama be nominated.

One possible explanation is that Hanson had big hopes for the Wright affair, and is bitterly disappointed that it didn't destroy his nemesis outright. Back in March, Hanson was sufficiently optimistic to actually question "seven or eight random (Asian, Mexican-American, and working-class white) Americans in southern California" -- possibly employees on his farm -- on Obama's big post-Wright speech, and was buoyed that "the answers, without exception, were essentially: 'Forget the speech. I would never vote for Obama after listening to Wright.'" His conclusion: "Now it’s too late. Like Hillary’s tear, one only gets a single chance at mea culpa and staged vulnerability — and he blew it."

Most Republican operatives probably saw the full-court-press on Wright as part of the patient wearing-down of opponent support that has been their great strength since the days of Lee Atwater. But Hanson is a true believer who expected this bucket of slop would cause Obama to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West, and is genuinely stunned to see him still on track for the nomination. It puts me in mind of the early days of the Lewinsky scandal, when conservatives were giddy at the impending demise of Bill Clinton, convinced that the truth had come out and the people would come round. When their victory was less than total -- when it provided some ammunition for future campaigns, but not the removal of their sworn enemy -- many of them were devastated, and some never got over it.

Similarly, Hanson views his half-empty glass with despair. "I don’t think I’ve heard or read more white cynicism in my entire lifetime," he claims -- again without sourcing, and probably speaking for himself. "And it is a sort of 'I’m tired' attitude, in which, after what Obama has said and done, the white middling class no longer cares all that much about minority angst, since it senses that minority leadership is hypocritical and shows a hatred of whites as voiced by Wright and euphemized by Obama. We owe all that to our first trans-racial candidate."

Anyone who looks at a mildly liberal black Democrat and sees hatred of whites, however "euphemized," is not going to be satisfied with political solutions. Whatever horrors the campaign has in store for the rest of us, it will be hell itself for Hanson.