Since LBJ most have trusted government one time

Then there are those 4 out of 5 Americans — free of any ailments that inhibit rational thinking — who trust government "some of the time or never." This distrust is at a near a historic low — or historic high, depending on how a person views such things.

News of the Pew poll triggered much hand-wringing from enlightened scribblers, unable to comprehend how the "paranoid" electorate wasn't appropriately enchanted by the Department of Commerce. But as Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill put it, "Distrust of government is an all-American activity. It's something we do as Americans and there's nothing wrong with it."

Indeed. Actually, with another ideological perspective, you could easily see the Pew poll as positively uplifting. The survey, after all, finds that Americans have an increasingly healthy attitude, embracing limited government over an "activist government" which, according to a majority, "has gone too far in regulating business and interfering with the free enterprise system."

So an alternative national headline for the "trust" story might have read: "More and more, citizens turn to free enterprise over regulation."

It would be unfair not to point out also that our "trust" in federal government first began declining during the Johnson administration which, among other things, promised everything and delivered little. Since then, the trust rating of Washington has only once broken through the magic 50 percent level (and that was after 9/11).