Oh, there can be a quibble or two. It causes me to cringe when well-respected public servants and opinion makers refer to our current international mess as the "worst" and "most dangerous" in our history. They ought to know better. Those of a certain age - say, mine - might remind them of a little affair called World War II and another called the Cold War. True, the Second World War didn't last as long as the Iraq War and not half as long as the Vietnam War, but it pitted a critically unprepared nation - us - against the most powerful juggernauts the world has ever seen.

It was a two-front war we could have lost, with profound consequences for the rest of the world. One of our adversaries was every bit as fanatic on the battlefield and committed to militant acts of suicide as anything the current crop of jihadist crazies could devise.

In fact, it would be interesting to compare the numbers killed all over the world by the suicides of these Islamist terrorists to the numbers by kamikazes and suicidal ground troops, and those determined Japanese did most of their destructive work in 18 months.

And it was World War II, after all, that opened the Pandora's Box of nuclear conflict. In the depth of the Cold War, 1962, this nation faced its only credible threat of nuclear war with an enemy who could actually deliver atomic weapons on multiple targets simultaneously. We had no effective deterrence except retaliation. Mankind was balanced on a razor's edge.

It is right to brace our nation to eternal vigilance. It is wrong to use fear as a weapon for political gain, eroding the individual freedoms we have always held dear - dearer than our lives.

Let's look at this "mushroom cloud" argument. The building of a substantial nuclear arsenal requires the resources of a nation-state, not of cells of fanatics living in caves. More important, the delivery of such weapons to distant points requires the kind of sophistication nearly impossible to hide.

Think North Korea. If there is a nation that is willing to supply perverted groups with both weapons and delivery systems, then that nation will be called to account. Its single attack will trigger massive retaliation resulting in the death of that nation and most of its people. Doomsday mathematics still apply and the strongest nations still hold all the cards.

Instead of attempts to paint this as the "worst" and "most dangerous" times, why not celebrate the results of the long, checkered journey to our national goal of individual equality? Look at what our post-war struggles have wrought. As President Bush spoke, a woman sat behind him as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

In the audience seeking his job were a woman and an African-American, both with realistic political chances. And just out of the first echelon, an American of Hispanic ancestry with as good an outsider's chance as any.

Not only that, but heading for Miami, two men also reaching for the top spot in their profession at the helms of football teams. Both men are African-American.

Perhaps this is as good a moment as any to remember we won all those struggles against nature, economic collapse, our own bigotry and determined armed enemies, not just by doing something, but by being something.

The American experiment remains the most powerful force in the world and can only be defeated by us, if we don't have the individual and collective courage to defend it right here in America.

And that is the real state of the union.

Nick Clooney writes for The Post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mails sent to Nick at nickclooney@cincypost.com will be forwarded to him via regular mail. Or write him at The Cincinnati Post, 125 E. Court St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45202.