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Politics

Dispirited about Washington? It's a national epidemic

By RON FOURNIER
Published March 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - Lies from the White House. Incompetence in treating wounded veterans. Irrelevance in Congress. Can't anybody do anything right? It's days like these that turn Americans sour on government, stoking a desire for leaders who actually lead.

Exhibit A is the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, whose trial cast unflattering light on the White House and the media.

Exhibit B is the shameful treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center, and the likelihood that problems are systemic - a national disgrace.

And let's not forget Iraq and Congress. Politicians sometimes seem too busy posturing on the war to help win it - or at least help get out of it. The lack of leadership is a bipartisan pox.

"The public is dispirited about Washington," said independent pollster Andy Kohut of the Pew Research Center. "They're dispirited about their leaders."

This is a moment not unlike the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when a fatally slow response caused Americans to question the competence of bureaucracies.

Katrina destroyed the president's credibility - "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"- and made many Americans wonder whether their faith in his Iraq policy was misplaced.

"It's the same story we saw with Katrina," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2008 presidential candidate. "You have tired, obsolete bureaucracies with no performance standards and with an absolute belief that avoiding change is more important than succeeding."

He was referring to Walter Reed, the bureaucracy in Baghdad and "a host of other national failures," ranging from the Detroit public schools to an overcrowded prison system in California.

"Republicans want to protect President Bush even if it's not their bureaucracy that has failed," Gingrich said, "and Democrats don't want to criticize the bureaucracies because they just want to attack President Bush."

And nothing gets fixed.

It's no wonder that 78 percent of Americans said in a CNN poll a few months ago that government is broken. And the lack of faith doesn't stop with the government.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans think U.S. society faces a "leadership crisis," according to a report by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government last year.

It tracked a loss of faith in the people who lead businesses, churches, schools and the media as well as governments.

"It's clear there's a growing frustration with leadership in politics and everything," said Democratic consultant Joe Trippi. "It started in the 1990s and has been growing with a fever pitch now with Libby being found guilty, Walter Reed and other stuff. Where the heck is leadership - any leadership?"

That may be the most relevant question of the 2008 race.

"Any party, or a third party, that actually broke out of this fog could really hit pay dirt with the American people," he said.

[Last modified March 9, 2007, 02:14:25]