RE: Shadows Over Both Parties' Houses

While, overall, Mr. Schorr is correct about why and how both the Democrats and Republicans have fallen into disfavor with the public, he's ignoring the big white elephant in the room. For the last 25 or more years, the Republican Party and the Conservative movement have been feverishly working to convince the American people that all government is bad. They reinforce this message by casting virtually every policy position and argument as loathsome "party politics." They also reinforce the message by being exactly the kind of dishonest, pandering, thieving politicians they claim all public servants to be. Popular disillusionment is a signal that they are succeeding. The real question is why are they trying to destroy the legitimacy of our government?

re: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/world/0512/chart.iraq.stats/frameset.exclude.html

Editorial Slant - The information contained in this graph is unhelpful at best and misleading at worst. On the surface, this graphic appears to show a more or less consistent improvement of conditions in Iraq. On closer examination, the start and end dates for each of the items are closely cropped so that they show a trend only within a carefully chosen time-frame. I don't think any of the graphs actually shows the entire period from pre-invasion to now... which would normally seem to be fair and useful as a basis for comparison.