Moderation is good, moderately speaking   What better place to
contemplate moderation, the topic of a panel and my purpose for
being here, than in the epicenter of human excess? The Black
Mountain Institute (at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
posed this question to a panel of three, which also included
Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and Fox News'
Juan Williams: "Is moderation possible in American politics?"
The implied consensus would seem to be: Probably not. Or at
least not without massive reforms and/or a renaissance of civic
duty. The hyper-partisanship we at least say we love to hate
isn't likely to recede, given the rewards.  Although the
discussion was aimed at politics, the question can't be
considered without also contemplating the broader culture.
Conveniently, the Vegas strip provides an apt metaphor for both
the culture and the political medium. Call it the American Id-
eology: Ids all the way, supersized. We are, in a word,
immoderate.  This was not always so. Once upon a