"Dissent is called Disloyal"

Here's a great piece by John Avlon highlighting the disconnect between Washington and it's constituents i/r/t  nasty partisanship:

Ninety-three percent of Americans believe that Washington is too partisan, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll taken one month ago.

That's not a subtle message. Ninety percent of Americans rarely agree on anything—60 percent is a landslide mandate in elections. But the professional partisans and pundits in Washington have been falling over themselves arguing that bipartisanship is a fool's game as of late. They insist that Americans must get more sophisticated when it comes to the ways of Washington and embrace the town's bitter and predictable partisanship as both wise and inevitable. 

This disconnect is the reason more and more Americans believe that government is broken—addicted to division and controlled by corrupt special interests. Ideological absolutism always comes dressed up as purity and principle. Conformity is characterized as courage. Dissent is called disloyal. Partisanship is confused with patriotism.

Thursday's bipartisan health-care summit is already being dismissed by cynics as the equivalent of a show trial. But both parties had better wake up to the clear message that Americans are sending Washington: This is not a game. This is our country, and we elected you to work together—to move America not left or right, but forward.

Just this morning I had to listen to a blowhard on the local news yapping his trap about how Scott Brown is a turncoat for breaking ranks on a bill that would create an assload of jobs.  Didn't see that one coming.  

Problem is these talking heads have convinced themselves that Brown was elected to solely serve the out-of-state parties that contributed 75% of his campaign funds.  Wrong again, teabaggers.  He was elected in defiance of a worthless shrew of a woman on the left and by a large majority of centered individuals - from Massachusetts.  So, save your purity test for someone else.