Keller @ Large: Not As Bad As It Seems

BOSTON (CBS) - President Obama was asked Thursday if he feels any responsibility for the highly-polarized political climate we're living in. And understandably enough, given the rough ride he's had, he blamed Republicans and conservatives for arguing that "cooperation or compromise" with him was some sort of "betrayal."

The president is entitled to his pain, but I wish he had offered a history lesson instead.

There is no doubt that by objective measurements, the partisan divide in Congress is worse today than at any time since the post-Civil War era. And the modern-day media trend of choosing sides and preaching to them makes a bad situation seem even worse.

But Congress and the news media are not the entire story of our times.

For my money, the 1960's were a much uglier time to be living in, when assassinations and riots and a really nasty generation gap prevailed. Were the McCarthyism of the 1950's, the internment of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor the early 1940's, the "red scare" of 1919, and the run up to the Civil War less divisive and polarized than now? I doubt it.

And when you read the fine print of the 2014 study that confirmed our current predicament, it notes that most Americans "don't adhere to uniformly conservative or liberal views," but "the political center has become increasingly disengaged, ceding the playing field to the most ideological Americans."

You know the old saying - the squeaky wheels get the grease.

Maybe it's time for the centrists among us to squeak up a little more loudly.