Another casualty of our fear-crazed society?

In discussing the candidacy of Obama in today's Washington Post, Michael Chabon points out some basic truths about us:

The point of Obama's candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.

Walt Kelly said it a little bit differently fifty and more years ago, "We have met the enemy and he is us."