THE ERA OF THE NEW MODESTY. The expression comes from 11-D, reacting to Our President's problems getting some of his insiders confirmed.

This class backlash going on right now, isn't coming from DC. It's coming from America. They are sick of double standards and their average paychecks. The DC types might be slightly irritated that their college roommates were making a fortune on Wall Street, but they aren't that upset. They know they can always cash in later. No, DC is just responding to the new message of their constituencies.

We're moving into an Era of the New Modesty. No more Viking stoves and houses in Hamptons. No more corporate jets and trust fund brats. And there's some muscle behind the New Modesty. The bail-out money is being closely watched. Senate confirmations are putting the rich on trial. And this is a good thing. The teachers and cops and contractors are having their say.

Andrew Malcolm sees the same thing.

That's the way Washington used to be, a place where representatives of the people went to work temporarily before they returned back home to the states, districts and, most important, the people they represented. Somewhere along the way, things got turned around.

Once elected, the representatives moved to the Washington area (Republicans generally to Virginia, Democrats to Maryland), got home mortgages there and, most likely, sold their home back home. Unless they had so many they couldn't keep track.

They lived in Washington and became part of a bipartisan, permanent political aristocracy because they knew, even if they ever got unelected, they'd be staying on to work in the lucrative legal-lobby-association complex that permeates that onetime swamp that Maryland gave away as worthless for the federal capital. (See video report on Obama's TV interviews about the Daschle withdrawal below.)

Pretty soon, even well-meaning elected folks began to represent Washington during their home district visits, instead of the original way. It takes a very strong personality to resist the self-import that comes from living and working and socializing in the national seat of power.

The same applies to the media, whose elites thrive on the access and exposure there. And it is a heady experience to address the president and others as unelected representatives of their audiences. Once assigned there, you may notice, few rotate back out into the field where most Americans live.

And so the District of Columbia becomes a club, mainly a fraternity still, with all the rights and privileges assigned to membership thereto.

Unsustainable privileges, perhaps. Right Wing Nut House has no use for business as usual.

Political debate – or what passes for debate in this world of media talking points and one line zingers – accomplishes nothing today. It isn’t just the rancorous partisanship that prevents a serious discussion of the weighty problems that confront us. It is the failure of the political class to project their ideas outside of the extremely superficial and predictable framework of simple minded ideology that has us talking past one another instead of communicating back and forth. There is no effort to stand for a while in our opponent’s shoes or even examine an issue for points of commonality upon which any compromise is to be based.

At bottom, this is a failure of imagination. No one is asking either side to abandon principles or betray one’s party. But what real political debate accomplishes is that both sides must constantly re-examine and justify their positions, bringing fresh insight to bear that might lead to a closing of the gap between the two sides and form the beginnings of a political understanding.

As superficial and half hearted as it has appeared to me, President Obama should still be commended for reaching out to Republicans on his stimulus bill. I think it is not enough but is that his fault? He seems constrained by his own base who view any outreach effort as both a waste of time and dangerously naive. But what Obama appeared to be doing was trying to alter the framework of ideology that grips both parties and makes our politics so poisonously partisan.

Although I appreciate the sentiments, and welcome the loss of credibility of the Permanent Screaming Establishment, perhaps the better outcome would be for the economic recovery to begin while the Permanent Screaming Establishment is still screaming about whether the National Endowment for the Arts or Amtrak improvements are stimulus or infrastructure or pork. Imagine ... conditions improve while the government is doing ... nothing.