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many shades of gray. The details, the subtleties? Well, those be damned.
• Look at Walt Disney World, which attracts visitors by reducing a complex national heritage to its most basic elements.There's so much more to Main Streets throughout America -- much more to frontier times, visions of the future and even other nations -- than the narrowly-conceived scenes at the theme park.
• This thinking extends beyond its gates, and is endemic today in Washington, where Democrats and Republicans constantly maneuver to be seen as the good guys, while painting the other side as simply the bad guys. In a constant quest for an edge, leaders stoke those stereotypes and play to people's proclivity to view everything -- including their politics -- in extremes.
• Americans aren't merely receptive to this shorthand. Many are complicit, enthusiastically categorizing politicians as saviors or enemies -- and consuming a mass media that perpetuates these simplistic views.
• It's no coincidence that we have a political landscape that the extremes dominate. But is the system as broken as polls say? Or do Americans simply think it's in shambles because of the barbs that politicians throw and the labels they use?
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama learned in his first term that he couldn't change Washington from the inside, saying in the heat of his re-election race: "You can only change it from the outside." Months later, his former White House aides and campaign advisers are embracing Obama's words as a call to action.
• Obama veterans are building a wide network of deep-pocketed groups and consulting firms independent of government, the Democratic Party and traditional liberal groups, a sweeping -- if not unprecedented -- effort outside the White House gates aimed at promoting the president's agenda and shaping his legacy.
• From campaign strategists to online gurus and policy hands to press agents, Obama loyalists -- including many who discovered that a second term yields fewer administration job vacancies -- are slicing his agenda into smaller parts and launching highly targeted efforts on subjects including health care, job creation and electoral politics.
• The lynchpin of the effort is Organizing for Action, a nonprofit run by former Obama advisers that has essentially transformed his re-election campaign into a grassroots machine to support his initiatives. In its early stages, the group is raising

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