"When both parties have lost public confidence, where do voters turn?"

A WaPo editorial says "A Pox On Both Parties." I couldn't agree more. I've moaned previously about how there is a certain inevitability to the lowest-common denominator attitude which rules modern politics. The sad thing is, I don't have much in the way of constructive solutions which would both work and have a snowball's chance of implementation. As facetiously appealing as XWL's immodest proposal for 'terminal limits' is on the surface, I doubt it will happen.

Perhaps a more modestless radical proposal might help at least raise the level of discourse. Norman Ornstein's suggestion that congressmen and women treat their jobs like a job, working Monday through Friday, makes a great deal of sense. My sense is that Jean Schmidt had probably never even Spoken to Jack Murtha before she savaged him on the house floor. Maybe if they had spent some time was actually working together, she would think to herself "Hey, Democrats are people too. Even if this man's proposal is wrong he deserves respect" and pause before hurling Molotov cocktails for partisan political games. And the same from the other side of the aisle. Unfortunately, the Tuesday-Thursday club is essential for the same pork-barrel politics upon which legislators rely to allow themselves to get re-elected ad infinitum. Why remove themselves from the trough that lets them vote for a pay raise, followed by a needed vacation from that most tiring work?

Its much easier to lose the trust of another than to win it back. To sooner the process starts, the better.