"A walking, talking person-shaped but otherwise not very human amalgam of 'positions,' that familiar, tirelessly striving figure interviewed on the evening news who resoundingly tells you what he is thinking -- and you keep wondering whether you should believe a word of it. These are people who don't seem to live in the world so much as to inhabit some point on graph paper, whose coordinates are (sideways) the political spectrum and (up and down) the latest overnight poll figures.''

Big Potomac High School

This is from Meg Greenfield's (Washington Post and Newsweek columnist) posthumously published memoir on her perceptions of D.C.. If this doesn't describe 99.7% of our country's leaders, I'd like to read the book that does. Obviously, this isn't a very optimistic outlook, but I find it somewhat comforting to find my vague distrust of politicians set down in such concrete terms. Now I know what I'm dealing with. :-)