There was an interesting segue during the roundtable discussion on ABC's "This Week" yesterday. A discussion of the GOP chairman's image problems specifically and people's disgust with Washington generally was followed immediately by a discussion of the latest sex scandal of the Catholic church.
During the political segment, former Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich said this:
I think that voters -- and it's not just Tea Parties -- voters all over this country right now are saying, as they've said before -- but I think with a greater sense of commitment and intent right now -- they're saying, the establishment politicians just don't get it. They don't know where we are. They don't understand what we're suffering with regard to unemployment or the economy. They don't understand fiscal responsibility. They don't -- they don't get any of the -- anything that we are talking about in our families and among our friends.
And this is bad. It's bad for Democrats. It's also bad for Republicans.
Republican strategist Matthew Dowd agreed, noting that the big problem today is "a total lack of public trust the public has of trust in Washington, whether it's Democrat or Republican. This is not a partisan problem."
The church segment featured comments by Dowd and Democratic strategist Karen Finely, both Catholics. Despite their political differences, they were united in their anguish over what's happening in the church and how to respond to it. Here's Finley:
You know, the mission of the church is to serve the faithful and to serve the innocent, not to leave children to be preyed upon by sexual predators, and that is essentially what is happening. That's what happened in the United States. Now we're learning that it is a much bigger problem.
And so I think this is a very -- I will be going to church after the show today, and I go to church with a very heavy heart. This is a real crisis of faith for many of us who are questioning, what is the mission of the church if we can't protect children from within our midst?
Dowd agreed:
The problem is -- and I agree with Karen -- the problem is, it's an institutional problem. It's an institution that, in my -- my view, has grown so big and so unwieldy and now only feeds itself, only serves to feed its own self and has forgot about the flock, the billion people out there that are Catholics.
The obvious connection to make between the political and church segments, though no one on the panel made it, is the theme of alienation. Both Washington and Rome have become giant institutions that seek more to attend to their their own ends than the needs of the people they are meant to serve. This creates a vast disconnect between the general polulations and those at the seats of power who "just don't get it." Throw in all the other ways people feel alienated today -- from companies that don't value their labor, from banks that don't care about their struggles, from media conglomerates that sell spin instead of distributing news -- and what we have today is not just an "anti-incumbent" mood or an "anti-Washington" mood. What we have is an anti-instititotion, anti-authority mood that's as strong as any I've seen. And I came of age in the anti-everything-traditional hippie era. We invented modern alienation.
People feel like strangers in their own country, not sure what the rules are anymore so not trusting anybody. That is the main thing our political class has to address, and I don't think they have a clue. I don't, either, but I think it's a little more complioc
