Lack of Intelligence.

If you need an example of why public trust in government continues to erode, look no further than this weekend's (lack of) action on the intelligence overhaul bill. Now there's lots of room for debate about the merits of the bill, as I've noted before. But at the end of the day, the measure had plenty of votes to pass. It just would've been embarassing for the House Republican leadership to have most of those votes come from the Democratic side of the aisle. It's very hard to convince people you're serious about making one of the most critical operations of the federal government run more effectively when important efforts that draw widespread support fall short for no other reason than political gamesmanship. It's sort of like the House and Senate repeatedly voting to trim the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative, then weaseling out when the measures get wrapped into larger pieces of legislation.