What is wrong with them?

Peggy Noonan has a new column up, wherein she asks "What is wrong with them?" She's speaking of our political representatives in Washington.

Peggy picks on several recent examples of politico self-absorption (a bit of an oxymoron, that), starting with Barack Obama's recent comparision of Abraham Lincoln to, well, himself:

Actually Lincoln's life is a lot like Mr. Obama's. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton's first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

She concludes with this:

What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water?

What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No. 1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

Is she right? Is this something that most Americans feel? Trying to think of counter-examples myself, I mostly come up with more outrageous examples of her point: McCain, Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Byrd all immediately come to mind as examples of precisely what Peggy is talking about. But I can think of at least a few counter-examples: Bush (G.W.), Zell Miller, Newt Gingrich (most of the time), Duncan Hunter. That's a very short list. Ok, so Peggy's at least asking a question about a real phenomenon. Is it really so mysterious what's wrong with them? Color me cynical, but I don't think it's very mysterious at all. They're corrupt...not in the legal sense, but in the moral sense. I believe that by and large, their principles are driven fairly directly by what generates campaign contributions. So...if Peggy is right, either I'm wrong, or most people haven't yet figured out that I'm right. I wonder what Peggy believes; she doesn't say...

You can read her whole column on Opinion Journal.