If I could just add one small point to the discussion. It’s worth noting, it seems to me, that the hermeneutics of suspicion (great phrase, that) have a mirror in what we might call the hermeneutics of faith. Two weeks ago — half of Obama’s presidency so far – there was a lot of talk of Obama as a “chess master.” Bob Herbert: “Mr. Obama is like a championship chess player, always several moves ahead of friend and foe alike.” Few can hold a candle to Mr. Herbert’s facility with clichés. But I think this is a real dynamic. No, I don’t mean that Obama is a chess master, but that some of his fans cannot tolerate the conflict between their opinion of the man and his obvious mistakes and short-comings. This is the flipside to political paranoia; the belief that “your guy” can do no wrong. In this sense the politics of hope and the politics of fear are not so different after all.
Maybe, this is worth fleshing out more, or not. Hard to say as I head back to my bubonic-plague coma.