Insane eras need insane politicians with insane agendas to make any progress at all in today's gridlocked political process. In an actual physical gridlock, which of the Lethal Weapon cops would you want driving? Rational and stuck Danny Glover or insane Mel Gibson?

As Shaw said, all progress depends on unreasonable people.

Obama proves the point: the most reasonable, logical and completely stuck and helpless president in a while.

People instinctively realize that being US president is not really a role homo sapiens were designed for. Its unnatural. So they look for a streak of crazy.

And the craziest ones? The ones who act like they're just regular guys you could have a beer with after work. Except their work involves the ability to nuke the world into oblivion, make or break millions of lives at the stroke of a pen, etc.

We need crazy in the White House now. Anyone even remotely reasonable will be caught and tamed by a phalanx of lobbyists and craven bureaucrats even before they are sworn in. It's called regulatory capture.

The last guy who really managed to mess with special interests and the bureaucracy was probably Teddy Roosevelt. Since then, every President, Bush Jr. included, has been too reasonable to avoid capture.