Don't know if you read my post yesterday, but I saw a little of Bill Moyers a couple weeks ago. He had Mickey Edwards on, who is a staunch repub/conservative. He does not like the direction of the conservative movement today. And he lays a major share of the problem at the feet of newt.

He believes newt created an atmosphere of war - repub vs. dems. And that the dysfunction in congress over the last several yrs is a direct result of policies he put in place.

>>I'm not just addressing this post to you Mike. If anyone can help me please chime in.
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>>Please explain to me how our view of the utopian "bipartisanship" is reached.
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>Last week, I read Andrea Mitchell's book "Talking Back." Among the things she discusses from her 40 years in the media is the change in civility that she saw in Congress in the 90's as part of the Republican Revolution.
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>Let me back up and say that having read the book, I do not know her politics. She's married, of course, to Alan Greenspan, and talks about social occasions with a lot of Republicans, including the Cheneys. So the book gave no reason to think the she's of a "Dems good; Republicans bad" frame of mind.
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>She talks about how prior to that time, there was a moderate group in both houses that helped get things down in a bi-partisan way. After that, the middle group disappeared (defeated or chose to leave), leaving us with the gridlock system we have now.
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>Tamar