South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune garnered national attention in 2004 when he ousted Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle from the seat he had held since 1986. There have been a lot of eyes on him ever since.

Several months ago, I invited one of the best of the up-and-coming journalists of the “new media”/“social networking” generation to address a class I teach on Congress. All went well until a student sought the guest's ideas on how civility might replace the partisan strife that characterizes so much of contemporary politics. "The first thing we have to do is get those 'baby boomers' both off the sets of cable news broadcasts and banished from both print and digital media," he said.

Robert Schlesinger argues that the GOP has a few bad policy ideas. I strongly disagree with him and contend that because the Democrats run the White House and Congress, we have witnessed misguided and irresponsible policy proposals that are having a negative impact on our country. Here are five examples:

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell went on MSNBC yesterday and talked about the president’s upcoming appearance on the daytime talk show, The View. According to Politico, here’s what he said: