Watching the C-SPAN call-in show last Friday, I was struck by the level of contempt for the Bush administration and government in general. One call from Texas typified the tone of many, insisting that the Bush and Blair governments, desperately in need of a PR victory, manufactured the terror plot and staged bogus arrests. However, if the plot turned out to be true, the Texas caller asserted, the United States merited punishment of this magnitude, at least, for past and continued misdeeds.

Here is a Brit blogger with a similar theme (sent to me by an earnest friend).

Conspiratorial thinking is not new for us. Political opponents of George Washington charged him with a secret plot to surrender the Republic back to Britain. GEORGE WASHINGTON! Some of our coutrymen still believe FDR complicit in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (in order to fulfill his desire for US entry into the world war). If the Republicans were out of power, and a Clinton were in the White House, our black-helicopter brigade would be on red alert about these same issues.

But still...

This persistent belief that our government is lying to us on this scale is an alarming cultural sign post. We have two unappealing possibilities. Dupes like us are fiddling while Rome burns. Or we are quickly approaching a crisis in which a critical mass of Americans no longer possess the requisite faith in government to make self rule practicable.