Michael Gerson:

Having not achieved their entire State of the Union agenda in a two-year rush, progressives blame structural forces or Senate procedures or Glenn Beck or the Koch brothers. And this disappointment easily blends into arrogance. As conservative populists argue that "the people" are better than the government, some liberals bluntly assert that the government is better than the people. "We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on," Sen. John Kerry said recently, "so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or the truth or what's happening." . . .

Disappointed that Congress and the public did not cheer every progressive initiative, modern liberalism has become a search for explanations that do not involve concessions. For the Obama team, that explanation is Washington -- the Babylon on the Potomac. Thus they avoid the need for reflection and readjustment -- at least for a time.