The Democrats, as we know, have many political problems: their uncertainty, their inability to trade jabs with the Republicans, their likely minority status in Congress for some time to come. Checked out a map yet of which senators are up in 2004? Let's just say that if you're not sure you can take much more depressing news, don't. But oddly enough, they don't have that many policy problems. Majorities in polls repeatedly are closer to the Democrats on abortion rights, environmental protection and a tendency toward deficit hawkishness rather than tax cuts.

There it was, the first Fourth of July after September 11: The majestic swell of a patriotism associated more with the era of the Andrews Sisters than the age of Destiny's Child. The ritual exultations of American values. The worry, yes, that something bad might happen somewhere, but even this concern only enhanced the solemnity of the moment. A splendid time, in other words, to be a president with a 70 percent approval rating.