According to a Pew Forum survey conducted in late March, Americans now think more highly of Washington politicians than they do of business executives.

As analysts at the Cato Institute point out, the Bush-Cheney energy plan may have been conservative in the sense that it was anti-environmentalist, but otherwise it was stuffed full of things free-marketeers are supposed to abhor: expanded government power to seize private land (for transmission lines), large tax incentives for energy sources that don't pay their way at market prices (nuclear power in particular). The energy plan wasn't about principles; it was about payback.