Now that everyone's rep has been destroyed

For some time I have been harping on the idea that no one's reputation has survived the Bush Years, or the Double 'Aughts, so much so that I have become a broken record. But it reflects a bitter truth that I think we should be aware of. Now this loss of reputation, indeed of basic trust and respect, has spread throughout the entire system of our society.

Here is Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal:

I spoke to a Manhattan-based psychiatrist who said there is an uptick in the number of his patients reporting depression and anxiety. He believes part of the reason is that we're in a new place, that "When people move into a new home they increasingly recognize the importance of their previous environment." Our new home is postprosperity America; the old one was the abundance; we miss it. But he also detected a political dimension to his patients' anguish. He felt that many see our leaders as "selfish and dishonest," that "our institutions have been revealed as incompetent and undependable." People feel "unled, overwhelmed," the situation "seemingly unsalvageable." The net result? He thinks what he is seeing, within and without his practice, is a "psychological pandemic of fear" as to the future of things—of our country, and even of mankind.

This morning, as I drank the first cup of coffee, I read on the front page of the paper the bitter fulminations of a selection of Bernie Madoff's victims - they want his head on a platter.

So who's next?