Is the Middle Ground Lost, Ctd.

The editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers its take on a “decade of hyper-partisanship.”

One paragraph from that editorial summarizes its premise perhaps better than any other …

The money is in partisanship. A member of Congress can’t afford to be a moderate, not if he wants to keep his job. Politicians who stray too far from party purity will face a well-funded primary campaign from the left (Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2008) or the right (Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania in 2010). In the past, giants of the Senate — Republican Bob Dole of Kansas and Democrat Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts — could work across the aisle and still be hailed as conservative or liberal lions. No more.

The editors’ conclusion …

Americans must demand better in the second decade of the 21st century, both of their leaders and of themselves.

Ditto — and amen.