When the going gets tough … find a convenient scapegoat. Not that AIG execs likely deserve their bonuses, but it sure seems like the collective venting going on is just the release of bottled up frustration and anger about the financial meltdown that, unfortunately, is too big and too amorphous to have a readily identifiable culprit.

For a downbeat assessment of what ails us, see Victor Davis Hanson’s column “Thoughts About Depressed Americans.” For a critique of the politicans whipping up AIG anger, read Thomas Sowell’s column “Bad Actors.” He starts:

Death threats to executives at AIG, because of the bonuses they received, are one more sign of the utter degeneration of politics in our time.

Rep. Barney Frank has threatened to summon these executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses — which would of course put their wives and children at the mercy of whatever kooks might want to literally take a shot at them.

I think most of us are just squinting into the distance, hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel.