I think we also have a media problem. I had to write a paper a couple years ago on the effect of the media on politics.... I chose to examine the media's emphasis on crime (NBC/CBS and a couple magazines) several years before the 1994 crime bill, to several years after. I also compared the coverage to the actual crime rate.

What I found was that in the early 90's, coverage was relatively low and rose sharply in 93/94, and continued to rise through 96 which was were I stopped researching. The most interesting part, however, was as the years progressed, the crime rate was declining!

Anyway, a large part of our national agenda, IMO, is set by what the media chooses to cover.