It's tacky to use tragedy for political gain ...

Since it won't stop Musharraf, and it never stopped Bush, I say go right ahead.

And on the day a woman died for democracy ...

I'm not glad Benazir Bhutto is dead, and even less so that she was assassinated, but I've got to ask — can we really laud her as an icon of democracy? Her party was murderous and corrupt and if she escaped being implicated directly it was only because she was cleverer than her father or any of her siblings.

Bhutto returning and claiming the mantle of democratic stalwart was pathetic and spoke more of the ill health of Pakistani politics than of her own virtues.

But there is also the skeptical feeling that the Bad Old Politics are not yet ready to be dragged offstage ...

Is there a reason to believe that Obama doesn't get it about "Bad Old Politics"? The man is a senator from Illinois — as staunch a bastion of bad old (Democratic) politics as you can find in this country.

I don't know enough about how he made his way through the political system in his home state, but would love to know more. Walter Shapiro makes an interesting claim — that Obama is inadequate to the challenge of presidential politics — but then fails to show us how it's true.

Does Obama not have big enough ideas? Does he lack the confidence necessary to tame Washington and wield executive power? Is he naive? Thoughtless? Unimaginative, unaware of the gravity of what he's undertaking? This was a chance to delve more into Obama's character and yet Shapiro seemed oddly reluctant to take it.

I don't get it. Are these guys really surprised to learn that the White House spent 2 years feeding them horse pucky to cover its own ass? A few missing tapes is the tip of the iceberg of questions the Bush administration has never answered — and for the most part has never been asked.

Anyone who spent more than 30 minutes looking at the history of the American war against al Qaeda would know that even giving them the benefit of the doubt the Bush regime is guilty of gross criminal negligence. That the Commission didn't place that conclusion front and center is a clear indication that they were either knowing tools or willfully ignorant. There's no other excuse for grown adults to behave that way.

So are they now looking for a fig leaf to cover their rush over the side of the sinking ship? Or have they been helplessly gnawing on their own knuckles all these years, grasping at their only chance to air their grievances like drowning men at a passing log?

(And what's with these mixed metaphors?)

Don't get me wrong, if this is what it takes to break the whole thing open then let's get the crowbar in there and start prying. But let's not get all Greek chorus and wail and gnash in sympathy with these guys. If this hadn't come along they would have been content (if not happy) to keep conning us indefinitely.

Anyone who has had personal contact with the political culture in Washington will recognize the attitude instantly. It's not just limited to news peoples — scorn for independent thought and unconventional wisdom among Washington aparatchiks is perhaps their most profound unifying trait.

But it's worth taking a step back and looking at the system which puts these people in place. Why is it spoiled college-campus journalists who end up being the filters for the information the rest of us receive? Why, for that matter, are Congressional aides and entry-level bureaucrats chosen primarily for their syncophancy? Not all societies work this way. Why does ours?

The fact of the matter is that we put those people there. We don't care to engage with the culture of our own governance, so it devolves into a Lord of the Flies-esque dystopia. Whether we like or hate what the papers print, we still read it and it's still what we discuss amongst ourselves. And whether we tune in or tune out of political discourse, lack of basic education on the issues facing us as a people make us suckers every time.

We are part of the bad habit.

There is a way of understanding the last quarter century in American politics as an experiment in determining how long it takes for a complacent people to learn the difference between "dumb" and "smart". Grotesque maladministration and corruption? Eh. Slander, sex scandal, and coup d'etat? Hardly a blip. How about even more grotesque corruption and slander? Lies, looting, death and destruction, the annihilation of whole cities and nations? Have we learned yet?

The answer is still out on that one.

The answer will be "no" if we conclude that the solution lies in changing merely the people involved. Stop there and nobody you pick will change anything. But conversely when we find ways to take control of our own political culture, we'll find that even mediocre leaders will be sufficient to our needs.

Web logs have a great potential to be one of the fulcrums of that change, but only if we never stop thinking about how it was that we got ourselves into the current mess in the first place.