The reflections of Mike Lofgren, a former GOP congressional staffer, have been the talk of the liberal blogosphere recently (see posts by Benen, Tomasky, and Bernstein). A taste of Lofgren's piece:
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner. A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media.
Fallows gets another staffer to comment:
Privately, many of us who have worked in Congress since before the Clinton Administration have been complaining about the loss of the respect for the institution by the Members who were elected to serve their constituents through the institution. I don't think people realize how fragile democracy really is. The 2012 campaign is currently looking to be the final nail in the coffin unless people start to understand what is going on.
Fallows has exhaustively covered the Lofgren cri de coeur here, here and here.
The Dish 