Running in political circles

Dana Milbank regularly drives me crazy because he routinely promotes or capitulates to the Convention Wisdom. From his prominent perch at the Washington Post, he's a relatively big fish in DC's toxic pond. A guy's gotta make a living, right? But there really is an intelligent mind beneath his studied pundit veneer. Occasionally, he lets it speak. In a poignant column, he laments our "politics without purpose." He is of course a contributing factor to why our politics have run off the rails. But never mind. Today at least, Milbank gives it to us straight: "The political extraneousness of the moment, in other words, is like that of early September 2001. We spent those days amusing ourselves with Gary Condit and shark attacks. President George W. Bush spent August on a record-long ranch vacation. The biggest issue under debate: stem-cell research. Warnings about Osama bin Laden were ignored while the administration obsessed over rewriting a missile treaty with Russia. What will it require to end the drift this time? A depression? Another attack? Or is there a less painful way to regain national purpose?" Milbank's haunting words are worth pondering.