Washington's 20 Saboteurs

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-23/washingtons-20-saboteurs/?cid=hp:exc

Who's to blame that Washington's back at a standstill? From Limbaugh to lobbyists, John Avlon—author of Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America, available from Beast Books—on who is standing in the way of the bipartisan progress America claims it wants.

They think you're stupid.

Ninety-three percent of Americans believe that Washington is too partisan, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken one month ago.

That's not a subtle message. Ninety percent of Americans rarely agree on anything—60 percent is a landslide mandate in elections. But the professional partisans and pundits in Washington have been falling over themselves arguing that bipartisanship is a fool's game as of late. They insist that Americans must get more sophisticated when it comes to the ways of Washington and embrace the town's bitter and predictable partisanship as both wise and inevitable.

This disconnect is the reason more and more Americans believe that government is broken—addicted to division and controlled by corrupt special interests. Ideological absolutism always comes dressed up as purity and principle. Conformity is characterized as courage. Dissent is called disloyal. Partisanship is confused with patriotism.

Thursday's bipartisan health-care summit is already being dismissed by cynics as the equivalent of a show trial. But both parties had better wake up to the clear message that Americans are sending Washington: This is not a game. This is our country, and we elected you to work together—to move America not left or right, but forward.

more at the link --

[Zoeisright]

1. Well, a significant percentage of Americans ARE stupid.

The median IQ is 100, after all. That means plenty of people are below that. And President George W. Bush is proof.