Wanted by disillusioned public: leaders

While candidates and pundits wonder endlessly if a presidential wannabe is black enough or woman enough, too Mormon, too liberal or too conservative, voters and taxpayers seethe.

In Springfield, a governor's stubborn bent grows inversely to his lack of popularity, and both parties seem chronically unable to engage in any meaningful activity beyond padding their own wages and benefits. Illinois residents get a million dollar-plus bill for a summer-long special legislative session in exchange for nothing and a budget based mostly on whimsy.

It is difficult to see how politicians can remain so oblivious to how far they've fallen in the eyes of those they purport to represent. Last fall's election sent a very readable message, a right cross to an aloof and heedless GOP. But Democrats now in power in both Washington and Springfield apparently missed the accompanying message. They won't be gloating long.

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken last week showed dismal approval ratings for Congress, even more dismal than those for President George Bush, who has set a very low bar.

Bush got a 35 percent approval rating, about where his rating has stood for months. But Congress made him look hugely popular, winning a thumbs-up from only 25 percent of respondents. Congressional critics were asked why they held that view.

At the top of the list?

"Lawmakers generally aren't doing their jobs," said the AP article on the poll, which appeared in Thursday's edition. Poor performance hasn't slowed self-granted pay raises, however. That complaint was followed by "a specific issue," "lawmakers care only about themselves and their party" and "back-stabbing and infighting," in that order.

That list of sins is pretty much usable in assessing the performance of the state legislature, too, for the complaints are those we read in daily letters to the editor.

But those sins are also the sort that aren't overcome easily because they are challenges of competence and respect.

Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and actor who is expected to announce a run for the GOP presidential nomination soon, may have the right idea.

In a David Broder column appearing on our editorial page the same day as the poll results ran, he blew up the status quo on political dialogue, saying he would force talks on an imploding entitlement situation, a worn-out military, the FBI's competence, the challenges of an aging society with runaway medical costs and "what it's going to cost."

Given the complexity of those issues and the rancor of the day, why run? Because those issues, he said, are "worth a portion of a man's life."

Whether you like Thompson's politics or not, when was the last time one of your representatives expressed any such feeling of obligation toward you and your future?

Until more of them do, those dismal performance ratings aren't likely to change. And useless, weird debates of little import will rage on as serious problems get worse and worse.