In the swift, excellent work and warnings of the mayors from New York to Cleveland to Toronto, all of whom were impressive in their efficiency and seriousness, one saw the other side of America. These are the people who are making this country really work -- and who would doubtless make it work infinitely better, were attention given from Washington to the internal needs of America instead of its external grandiosity.

But power lines, infrastructure, bridge and expressway repair, water conservation, and above all the crucial preservation of the environment are of little interest to this administration. To name just one watershed moment in the world of electricity and power, in June 2001, a Democratic proposal brought up in Congress to offer $350 million in federal loans and loan guarantees to improve power transmission systems was defeated by the allies of President Bush in the House.

Some time in the last decade, the Republican Party, which used to be the sober, serious custodians of our economic and civic investment, became instead a party taken over by reckless foreign adventurers with little or no concern for the internal health of the country.

This wanton lack of concern for the country extends, ironically, into the area upon which they depend for their foreign forays. None of the money promised has been forthcoming for the police or firemen (our true custodians) who behaved so elegantly after 9/11. Little concern is shown for veterans -- the veterans budget is $1.8 billion short for 2003.

It took a blackout to illuminate the way our federal government -- Congress and (especially) the White House -- is neglecting our nation, and thus, us.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, Paul Bremer, our reconstruction jefe, has announced that it will probably take two more years to fully restore electricity there. And the terrorists who still stalk the world are always watching: Terrorism specialists have been predicting for years that these attentive movements would eventually attack big public works in the West, like poisoning water supplies -- or disrupting some huge power grid and then using the consequent confusion to attack the country elsewhere.

Critics of the war against Iraq have said since the beginning of the conflict that Americans, still strangely complacent about overseas wars being waged by a minority in their name, will inevitably come to a point where they will see they have to have a government that provides services at home or one that seeks "empire" across the globe. In fact, that moment may now have come.

Our mayors and local and national officials did their jobs well, even heroically -- demonstrating that the human "grid" of the country is strong and ready. Some Democrats are seriously talking conservation and preservation -- does this mean that the Democratic Party will pick up the cudgel for restoring infrastructure in America, or could the Republicans return to their historical selves? Does our political class, so frivolous about conservation for so many years, have the real capacity to take on serious questions?

Finally, when the lights go on again, will Americans continue to care?