My guess is that paranoia and cynicism may be diverting attention from a few more fundamental issues.

President Obama was elected as a charismatic leader; however, few institutional practices have changed. Partisan politics prevails in Washington, and there is little evidence that any serious attempts are being made at consensus building, and contracting derived from consensus building. The coexistence of charisma and tradition is an unstable situation, and either the charismatic values must change traditional institutions and practices; or traditional institutions and practices will dispel the aura of charisma.

Underneath this unstable situation are centuries long cultural and economic tensions. It seems to me that once more we are faced with confrontations between progressive and traditional cultural values, and concerns about centralized and decentralized approaches to power. Perhaps even more importantly are continuing clashes between planned economic approaches and market-oriented capitalism. The structures involved with top down and bottoms up economic approaches are largely incompatible; and the clash between them creates an atmosphere which fuels paranoia and cynicism. The challenge is to bridge these different perspectives, and develop a consensus around modified structures and values that support them. Until this occurs paranoia and cynicism will blur our vision.