The Days of Awe aren't here yet, but it's hard to deny that things are looking pretty awful. There's a feeling of system collapse, of the country in a funk. The famous "What's going to be?" plaint has returned. All the institutions and symbols of the state are riddled with cracks. The president is being questioned under caution on a rape charge, and he has no intention of stepping down or even going on holiday. The chief of staff, considered a military genius and a future candidate for prime minister when he took office, messed up his first war and will face the music when the investigation committees call him in. The national police commissioner is being interrogated. The prime minister, who has bribe charges pending against him, will also have his performance during the Lebanon war scrutinized by a battery of investigators.

In practice, Ehud Olmert, who never dreamed he would be prime minister two years ago, was swept along on Ariel Sharon's trajectory. If one thing had not led to another, and Sharon were not in a coma, it is doubtful if Olmert would be where he is today. He was elected, yes, but the truth is that Sharon appointed him. Under the difficult tests he was put to, he didn't come out looking good. His speeches were hollow and theatrical. He made a whole series of political appointments that were not wise, and heads a party that may exist only in theory.

After all the outcry about Kadima not being a party and not having a single branch office, they dropped the office idea and built themselves a building - Kadima House. Cyril Northcote Parkinson once said about the British Colonial Office that one of the signs of imminent collapse was building a new building. With a sack of investigations and a slew of bad decisions, Olmert looks like a loser, with or without a building.

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The last of the losing quartet is Amir Peretz, who waved the social banner but found himself playing defense minister. With his bizarre public appearances, he came out looking like a rubber stamp for Dan Halutz's plans. Smug, to the point of bragging that Hassan Nasrallah would never forget his name, Peretz will also be hauled before the committees probing the bungles of Lebanon War II.

At the moment, if anyone remembers his name, his rivals in the Labor Party are the ones who are shooting in every direction. Unlike the Labor party in its heyday, when there was a natural succession of leadership, nowadays everyone and his cousin thinks he's cut out for the job. The one goal that unites them all is pushing Peretz out of his seat as party chairman.

In the eyes of the public, most of our national institutions and state symbols are cracked and flawed - more so than ever before. People have no faith in the Knesset, despite the current one being better than the last. Unlike America, our patriotism is not the anthem-flag-national institution-emblematic kind. Often, the media sets the tone, with daily newspapers and TV news stations engaged in a frenzied and sick competition to outdo one another.

News reports and political commentators, some serious, some not, end up determining the national agenda. They decide who gets into power and who goes to the guillotine. Sometimes, the political arena looks like one of those beer-and-good-cheer shows. All of a sudden, pensioners' parties are all the rage. Today, they have seven members in the Knesset; tomorrow, they'll have none. All of a sudden Kadima, which once had 45 seats in the surveys, is worried that the only convergence it will ever see is convergence with its mother party, Likud.

Yitzhak Rabin, who came to power after the fiasco of the Yom Kippur War, warned the public about the "trust me" and "everything will be fine" culture. He practiced what he preached by choosing the peace option. After his assassination, things took a turn for the worse. Daniel Bloch, former editor of Davar newspaper, accuses Halutz not only of arrogance but of straying from the policy of which we were so proud - the policy of retaliating against hostile acts at a time and place of our own choosing.

What a pity that Nasrallah was the one who had to expose the ignominy of our leaders, who deviated from Israel's mythical motto with their hasty offensive in Lebanon. What a pity that Nasrallah was the one to pull the cover off and reveal the rustiness of the Israeli army.

There are good, worthy people who are reluctant to set foot in Israeli politics. When all the inquiries are over, when all the conclusions have been reached, we may find ourselves back at square one - with Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. We know these guys. We suffered from them, we got rid of them, and now we're getting them back again. Just what we need, apparently, to top off our national funk.