[Warhammer]

I think that it, at the root, is a leadership problem. Harry Truman has a couple of quotes from "Where The Buck Stops" that I think are appropriate here:

"My definition of a leader in a free country is a man who can persuade people to do what they don't want to do, or to do what they're too lazy to do, and like it."

If the president can do this, he educates the voters.

And a large failure of that leadership has to do with communication, which is where the Bush has failed miserably. Again, from Truman

"That's why I've always felt that a good president has to be the greatest public relations man in the world: because he's got to make the country believe that what he wants to do is the right thing."

I also think that the Republican congresscritters have some blame for this, but I think that strong leadership, leadership that could communicate well, would have convinced the public and kept the critters from committing some of their most egregious offenses.

[plain talk]

Yes, leadership is a huge part of it. Leaders at all levels and most of them not even elected officials. The key gap is to get a majority of voters to become lifelong conservatives. That is not accomplished by relying on individual personalities or occasional “Reagan’s” to come along. That is a systemic problem that takes broad organization, discipline and years to fix.

[The Pack Knight]

That's exactly right. Republican Congressmen are certainly to blame, but we have to remember that Congressmen are Congressmen, and have been since the beginning of our Republic. Without firm leadership, they're going to do what they're going to do.

We can't expect all Congressmen to be paragons of civic virtue: they aren't and never will be. What we can, and must, expect are leaders who will keep Congress on task and hold them accountable when they goof off. That has been sorely lacking in the Republican Party today.

While the milquetoast Congressional leadership deserves a lot of blame, the buck ultimately stops with the President. That he has failed to provide that leadership is one of the biggest black marks on his presidency.