The best thing I didn't see on Fox News Channel

Back in the U.S., channel surfing in the hotel room at 3am because of the 13-hour Beijing-DC time difference, come across something I am denied/spared in China: the Fox News Channel!

Most of it, same as always, except for a little more Botox, trout lips, and related burnishings for the female news people. But there's something missing..... What is it that my eye is accustomed to but doesn't see????

Maybe... the logo of the waving American flag? It used to be so prominent, but now it seems to reappear only as a tiny underline beneath the occasional label saying Live or Fox in the northwest corner of the screen.

But no, there's something else that I'm not seeing. ... And -- now I've got it! There's no longer any "terrorism threat level" warning included in the crawl!!

The current threat level could be orange, it could be yellow, it could be "elevated," it could be "extreme" -- and FNC viewers would not be reminded of that fact every five seconds, as they had been for years.

I don't often look to Fox News for indications of sanity and perspective in our public life, but this one counts.

I won't stop to re-argue the case that 'fraidy-cat-ization of America was one of the most damaging long-term effects of 9/11. (For more, see below.*) And I realize that if this mood has passed, it's less because of a sober reassessment of the importance of stoicism than because of some crude Law of the Conservation of Fear. The more people are terrified about economic meltdown, the less they have time to be terrified about anything else.

Here's the reason I raise the topic. Even if the age of American fearfulness is ending -- not potential threats to America, but America's fearful response -- a bellicose nervous-nellyism is now a major part of our identity in the eyes of the world.

Once again, I take my evidence from pop fiction, this time from a best-seller in India:

One Night at the Call Center, by Chetan Bhagat, is not a great book, but it is a very interesting one. It's a romantic novel set at a U.S. company's call center in India. The young, well-educated, Friends-type group of Indians who make up its cast spend all night answering questions and enduring abuse from Americans who can't figure out how to make their home appliances work.

One of the book's big themes is the Indians' dripping contempt for the U.S. customers who alternately ask idiotic questions and ridicule the Indians for their accents. One of many, many scenes to this effect, involving the characters Vroom and Pryanka:

"Vroom even checked out sites meant for mentally handicapped people. He said if we can model it on them, Americans will surely be able to use it."

"They're not that stupid," Pryanka laughed. Americans invented computers, remember?"...

"Yeah, there are ten smart guys in America. The rest call us at night."

"...The only reason Americans have a say in the world is because they have cash. The day we have money, we can screw them. So, the first thing we have to do is earn the money."

The plot of turns on a threat to close down the call center, unless it can generate more traffic. The young Indians come up with an answer:

"Good, then listen. This call center will survive only if we can increase our call traffic, and my plan is to scare the Americans into calling us. Tell them that terrorists have hit America with a new computer virus that threatens to take their country down. The only way they can stay safe is to keep calling us to report their status. ..."

And salvation comes through "Operation Yankee Fear," with these instructions for the call center crew:

Operation Yankee Fear's single aim is to increase the incoming call traffic in the Connections center, capitalizing on Americans being the biggest cowards on the planet. ....

1) Start with an apology for disturbing them on Thanksgiving Day

2) State that "evil forces" of the world have unleashed a computer virus that threatens to attack every computer in America. This way the evil forces will be able to monitor every American and eventually destroy their economy. Tell them that, according to your information, the virus has already hit their computer.

3) If asked what the "evil forces"are, give vague explanations such as, "forces that want to harm the U.S." or "organizations that threaten freedom of speech and liberty." Remember, the more vague you are, the greater the fear you will generate...

We may now have a financial disaster to deal with, but perhaps the days of being mocked as "the biggest cowards of the planets" in best-selling novels are nearing their end. With Fox News Channel leading the way!

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* That case previously argued here, here, here , and in an Atlantic cover story "Declaring Victory" here.