Washington Post
by Chris Cillizza
February 7, 2013

It’s no secret that the American public views its elected officials with some combination of disgust, disappointment and distrust. Congress’s approval rating is in used-car-salesman territory, and with every legislative crisis it dips, somewhat amazingly, lower.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-...-in-government/

Instead, it appears to be a political death — or at least bloodletting — by a thousand cuts. No one event is to blame. Rather, something even more corrosive to government appears to be happening — a steady and growing belief that politicians in Washington are simply not to be trusted.




The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. - George Washington's Farewell Address, 1796