The Bitter Southerner: A Gate-Cut From Us All

CivicPoint Managing Principle Tom Lee breaks down southern politics for the Bitter Southerner.

Frederick Wiseman's titanic 2007 documentary, "State Legislature," opens in the Idaho state capitol. Surrounded by sandstone tributes to log-cabin pioneers, high-school students in flannel shirts and acid-washed jeans sit on the capitol rotunda's granite floor. They are as mouth-agape bored as they are visibly uncomfortable while their host, Bruce Newcomb, the speaker of the Idaho House, relates to them.

"I used to think if you were in the legislature you were really something," Newcomb tells them, with no touch of irony. "Then I got to be in the legislature. And I realized you were one of 105 people."

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