I’ve never had a case of the Mondays quite like today. I can’t imagine I’m alone.

Another week like last and I’m not sure we make it to Election Day with any sense of perspective . . . or sanity.

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On the bailout/rescue/investment/Marxist dream plan, we saw conservative vs. conservative, with the only certainty in the room being uncertainty. On Sarah Palin, we saw MSNBC in heat at the prospect of conservatives turning on the woman to John McCain’s right. During the same week, I read from folks on the Right that I’m jealous of the attention Palin’s getting because I made the slightest legitimate criticism as I urged the McCain campaign to use their veep nominee well. When I gave her post-debate high marks (thanks for freeing the Gov, guys), folks on the Left dismissed my review as lesbian fantasies (ah, the Internet!). Long after Sean Hannity was talking about terrorist Bill Ayers, the New York Times on Saturday tried to help downplay his relationship with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. And by Saturday evening, cnn.com was reporting that National Review had aided the Obama campaign by trying to rewrite Obama’s biography. (The truth is something very different. Just Google Stanley Kurtz.)

This is insanity. Another week like this and we’re all going to be so angry and jittery we’re liable to become a nation of Keith Olbermanns.

Peggy Noonan has a new book out. It’s called Patriotic Grace. It couldn’t have come out at a more perfect time.

We’re a month out from a presidential election. We’re excited to see that, yes, anyone can run for the White House and make the finals. The black son of a single mother and a father from Kenya. A gal who hunts moose — and corrupt pols — from the remotest state of the union. An American hero. A career politician.

But we should be careful not to get caught up in the hyper-partisanship that can ensue, nor in the romance of milestones. There are issues and existential threats.

Noonan is worried about the latter in a big way. It partially comes from living in New York. It’s hard to forget when you live in New York and you see so many targets, and the gap in the sky. But “It’s odd. Stunning, actually.” she writes, that we can not only go through our daily lives but now a presidential election glossing over some of the most critical challenges facing us. Honestly, even John McCain and Sarah Palin, who I think are the grown-ups in the room, winks and all, make light of questions about Pakistan, dismissing Katie Couric’s legitimate pressing as part of a Gotcha! campaign.

Considering that I have no idea what to do with Pakistan, I’d like to know it’s near the top of the minds of the presidential candidates’ and their teams’ minds.

“Man has never developed a weapon he didn’t ultimately use,” Ronald Reagan once warned, and Noonan reminds us.