ANTICIPATING OUR HISTORY

It's only a skip and a jump from helplessness to hopelessness. Helplessness -- as metamorphosed by the image of that relentless gusher -- has become the media's favorite bete noire. As they eagerly circle the carcasses of our catastrophes in banking, schooling, unemployment and warfare, we are daily reminded everything seems to be failing.

"World's Super Power Helpless to save Itself!"

That has just the right apocalyptic touch to it. But lest we forget, it's not unlike other apocalyptic moments of historic helplessness: Pharaoh confronting the plagues...Christ on the Cross...Napoleon at Waterloo....Lincoln facing military defeat after defeat ...FDR's vision for the CCC & TVA denounced everywhere as secret socialism ...now Obama staked daily to the bonfires lit by naysayers from both left and right.

No one can deny today's dizzying episodes of national helplessness. However, in the final measure only History can meet the demands of this foundational question: How exactly did we reach this hazardous precipice?

When the textbooks are written in some distant day, they may be compelled to start by choosing between a Who or a What line of reasoning. If the Who, then the books will largely recount the crush of poor decisions by our leaders. If the What, the books will largely recount the crush of global events so large and intractable they were often beyond the reach of most human decisions. Global warming, global terrorism, global finances, global hatreds.

Now if future historians take this second slant, their title for our times might read something like: "Too Big To Solve." What's more, it's entirely likely future readers will tend to agree. Especially as they mull over how much worse it could have all been had we been led during these frightful years by an even more imperfect leader.