Not miffed at all. Just find it utterly hilarious how the Right bitches about the Left's spin... and then does the exact same thing.
Sit on sideline.. 
I can't argue with that at all.
And I tend to agree with bkg in that the Republican party has largely forgotten about conservatism. I happen to believe also that both major political parties have morphed and continue to morph in accordance with their respective leadership to the point that they're essentially not recognizeable any more.
You've got liberal Republicans in the northeast and conservative Democrats in the south; blue dogs here and RINOs there.
The "problem", as I see it, is much more fundamental. Professional politicians seek to serve themselves FIRST. They also have to play ball with the party that put them there - except for those like Jeffords and Specter who decided to defect. Jeffords largely did so for ideological reasons and Specter because he found that his next election was untenable.
As for me, I don't trust any of the bastards from either party. My own rep, Blaine Luetkemeyer, does hold up what his constituents expect, and it's a good thing because he's on a very, very short leash.
There's only one congressman that I had a semblance of respect for, and that was a Democrat by the name of Jim Matheson out of Utah. (There are only 3 reps, so it's not hard to find him.) Matheson is a Blue Dog and while he marches to the Dem drumbeat on the House version of their health care POS bill, HR 3962, he has an admirable work ethic and sense of duty to his constituents that you just don't see very much anymore.
Anyway, third parties fail. We've seen that over and over again. Blind loyalty to a party doesn't work very well either.
While there might be some ideological differences between Dems and Repubs, the practical nature of their collaboration has resulted in the two "sides" blurring and becoming nondistinct. That means, without exception, that the fringes of either side become more distinct and thus, more vocal. That's why we have the far left moonbat crowd (with Lord Zero, Pelosi, and Reid chief among them) and the Tea Party movement.
Tea Partiers don't want to associate themselves with the Republican party, but are adamant against creating a new, official party for the reasons I've outlined above. It would fracture the Republican party and thus create an open door for the far left fringe.
I dunno. I'm probably just a wee bit less passionate about politics than some of you guys, only because I see the nature of politicians to have become far more self-serving and less responsive to constituents. Why? Because special interests and the party call the shots. It's been that way for awhile now, the only difference is we see it today whereas we didn't see it so much 50 years ago.
YMMV.
