For all their flaws and quarrels, the Founding Fathers have rightfully been called by Arthur M. Schlesigner, Sr., "the most remarkable generation of public men in the history of the United States or perhaps of any other nation." It is worth noting the qualities this historian ascribes to them: they were fearless, high-principled, deeply verses in ancient and modern political thought, astute and pragmatic, unafraid of experiment, and -- this is significant -- "convinced of man's power to improve his condition through the use of intelligence." That was the mark of the Age of Reason that formed them, and although the 18th century had a tendency to regard men as more rational than in fact they were, it evoked the best in government from these men.

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Not before or since has so much careful and reasonable thinking been invested in the formation of a governmental system. In the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, too much class hatred and bloodshed were involved to allow for fair results or permanent constitutions. For two centuries, the American arrangement has always managed to right itself under pressure without discarding the system and trying another after every crisis, as have Italy and Germany, France and Spain. Under accelerating incompetence in America, this may change. Social systems can survive a good deal of folly when circumstances are historically favorable, or when bungling is cushioned by large resources or absorbed by sheer size as in the United States during its period of expansion. Today, when there are no more cushions, folly is less affordable.

We're certainly well past the point where there is any amount of cushion in regard to our energy policies, and reactionary petro-politicians like Bush and Cheney no longer have the freedom to fart around willy-nilly with the intention of maximizing oil company profits at the expense of national self-interest. That point is (perhaps) just beginning to become evident to the general population, which has begun to hear more frequently that dreaded expression "peak oil", and maybe even to begin to understand what that means for their preference for SUVs over smaller fuel-efficient cars and roads over mass transit.

The same is true for our global security policies, where Iraq may (one can only hope) be bringing home the idea that it's not possible, no matter how strong we are militarily in relation to the rest of the world, for us to police the world by ourselves, without the assistance and cooperation of multi-national coalitions and established international institutions, nor is willing reality into existence a substitute for careful and rational planning of all parts of a military/diplomatic operation, including the inevitable aftermath.

The classic political cop-out after the fact is "Mistake were made," and that's certainly true, but this time the mistakes -- military, diplomatic, economic and social -- have been gargantuan ones, and they've all been made deliberately, and, in many cases with malice aforethought for their political value to the continuance of the ruling regime. The scope of the damage that's been done is immense -- there is literally nowhere you can look, no aspect of American society or the international situation which hasn't been adversely affected or grossly perverted by the Bush/Cheney administration's concerted efforts to roll back the clock and undo the gains we'd made and the national and international infrastructure that were laboriously put in place since the Great Depression.

Will we ultimately be able to absorb and undo the damages caused by Bush and Cheney's Folly? From as deep in the hole as we currently are, it's hard to see the answer to that. Certainly, the recovery won't come with the next Democratic administration, or even two -- I've long felt that it will take decades of concerted effort to bring us back (and putting us into a deep enough hole that it will be extremely hard to get out has certainly been one of the aims of the New Reactionary Establishment behind the Bush/Cheney regime) -- and during that period when we're attempting the Reconstitution of the American Republic as ideally conceived, we'll still be battling against the entrenched power of the Republican Party, unless we're lucky enough to have it collapse catastrophically in the meantime, which seems not impossible but highly improbable given its corporate backing.