For a while, there, I feared for the republic.

Any criticism of the U.S. national soccer team was met by outraged rebuttals from fans and soccer bloggers-cum-reporters. They were unwilling to countenance the notion that the U.S. effort in Brazil was anything but The Best Possible Outcome or that Jurgen Klinsmann was anyone other than the greatest figure to work for the soccer federation.

Anyone who didn’t settle into the group think of the pro-Klinsy radicals (who seemed to include anyone on the ground in Brazil) was fair game. No. More than fair game. Someone who needed to be gunned down immediately. A whiff of hysteria was in the air.

And this included “name and shame” pursuit of major U.S. soccer figures — guys who know the team from the inside — such as Alexi Lalas, Landon Donovan and Eric Wynalda.

What was thoroughly alarming about this process?

American print journalists, who ought to be the calm, cool and rational observers of any breaking story, largely became flag-waving partisans. I was embarrassed for them, and concerned that perhaps the witless blathering on social media had convinced (or frightened) actual journalists that cheer-leading was the only way to cover the U.S. team.

The crisis occurred a few days ago.

1. Dan Patrick had on his radio show Eric Wynalda, leading scorer in U.S. soccer history until Landon Donovan came along, and Wynalda decried the unwillingness of Klinsmann to play with two forwards in the Germany and Belgium games — trying to score goals, that is. Wynalda called it “almost un-American” to passively pack it in on defense — leading to an uproar because anyone who suggests Klinsy is “un-American” clearly must be beaten down. Patrick treated Wynalda as if he were 1) an idiot or 2) a deranged bomb-thrower or 3) both.

A guy who works for NBC Sports posted the transcript of the interview, calling it a “weird rant” by Wynalda, mocking him for drawing a parallel to the 1994 round-of-16 match with Brazil (in which Bora Milutinovic, the most recent non-American coach, before Klinsmann, who also played with one forward, but no matter, it’s ancient history of no value to today’s youth) and eventually decided Wynalda’s performance was “clown shoes” and “sour grapes”.

Another blogger suggested Wynalda had damaged his job prospects with his remarks — because they were so clearly wrong and un-patriotic, as well.

2. Next up on Dan Patrick (and has Patrick always been a crabby scold?) was Landon Donovan, who was mild, even as Patrick kept attempting to force him into saying “yeah, I would have scored on the chance Chris Wondolowski massively screwed up” — but Landon didn’t rise to the bait.

Then, Landon went to practice with the LA Galaxy and was more forthcoming with the reporters he knows, echoing Wynalda’s analysis that Klinsmann didn’t believe in his team being able to win, noting the packed-in defense, particularly versus Belgium. “I don’t think we were set up to succeed, and that was tough to watch,” Donovan said.

Scott French, who kept his head, throughout, reported those remarks here, and it was another case of fair comment which rankled the super-patriots to their core.

Ives Galarcep, who really ought to know better by now (but perhaps gets a teeny bit of leeway because the whole of the U.S. soccer community was preaching group think), framed it as a debate on Landon. “There are those who agree with what Donovan said, and those who felt Donovan should have showed some class and kept his comments to himself, particularly because they came off as sour grapes by a player cut from the U.S. team.”

And from the way in which he framed that statement, which side of that does Ives come down on, would you think? (Mock the messenger!)

Can’t have veteran players with criticisms of the red, white and blue, can we?

Finally, on July 8, or a complete week after the Belgium match, someone who does not worship at the feet of Klinsy was allowed to speak, without apparent personal attacks from all comers … and tell me Alexi Lalas doesn’t say lots of things that needed to be said.

Said Lalas: “I think that we are at a point where we shouldn’t be satisfied that we are in a World Cup and we shouldn’t be satisfied with getting out of our group. That’s OK to say. (My note: “But only a week later.”) There should be critical analysis of our players and our team, and that’s OK. And I think that we will continue to do so …

“Many of the things that we celebrated with this team are not revolutionary. I think that they are a constant, and many of the things that the masses celebrated are traditionally things that this U.S. team has been good at …

“The way in which they played in this World Cup is basically the same way this U.S. team has played for a number of years …”

He noted how the first-match injury to Jozy Altidore led to unfortunate tweaking of the team, particularly involving Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley.

Said Lalas: “It all leads people to ask the question: ‘Why wasn’t there a better replacement for Jozy?’ And that’s something that Jurgen Klinsmann ultimately has to answer.

“If there was improvement over the last four years, I don’t think it’s too much to ask the head coach to be able to cite how this team has improved. There are questions I have for this team and I have for Jurgen, and I think they are fair and they are legitimate.”

(What? Fair comment is OK in the People’s Republic of US Soccer-istas?)

And a final bit from Lalas. “When you promise to have this team play, to use his word, in a more ‘proactive’ approach, a team that takes it to other teams and dictates the rhythm of the play, and then to get to the World Cup and it’s just more of the same … it leaves you scratching the head. It leaves you asking legitimate questions: How far have we progressed? In what way have we progressed? And how quickly have we progressed?”

My opinion? The U.S. did not progress an inch between 2010 and 2014, despite Sunil Gulati’s rash decision to turn over the whole of U.S. senior soccer to Klinsy.

Klinsy apologists can and will attack that, but at the least we seem to have returned to something resembling a willingness to countenance criticism of the U.S. effort at Brazil 2014.

For a while, I was not sure that was going to come around. Maybe the Fourth of July had something to do with it. Thinking about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. All that.

Geez.

A lot of journalists need to take a look at themselves in the mirror, and promise themselves they will not let a mob mentality of short-term and not-informed fans with a Twitter account decide how they evaluate what they have seen.