{"id":5675,"date":"2026-02-27T08:02:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/?p=5675"},"modified":"2026-02-27T08:02:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T13:02:40","slug":"the-best-kept-secret-in-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/the-best-kept-secret-in-washington\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best-Kept Secret in Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"885\" height=\"677\" data-attachment-id=\"5676\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/the-best-kept-secret-in-washington\/opinion-the-best-kept-secret-in-washington-the-new-york-times-02-27-2026_06_45_am\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM.png\" data-orig-size=\"885,677\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM-300x229.png\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM.png\" src=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-5676\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM.png 885w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM-300x229.png 300w, https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Opinion-The-Best-Kept-Secret-in-Washington-The-New-York-Times-02-27-2026_06_45_AM-768x587.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 885px) 100vw, 885px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These days, Congress, which hosted President Trump\u2019s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, is often seen as the third wheel of the federal government, forever overshadowed by the presidency and Supreme Court, with a truly dismal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/1600\/congress-public.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">approval rating<\/a>. But Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks Americans might have gone a little too far in their Congress bashing. Congress \u2014 or at least the \u201csecret Congress,\u201d as he calls it \u2014 is not nearly as gridlocked or incompetent as its reputation suggests. The \u201ctoxic Congress,\u201d on the other hand\u2026. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/27\/opinion\/congress-trump-secret-toxic.html\">Read more<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These days, Congress, which hosted President Trump\u2019s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, is often seen as the third wheel of the federal government, forever overshadowed by the presidency and Supreme Court, with a truly dismal\u00a0approval rating. But Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, thinks Americans might have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[160],"tags":[157],"class_list":["post-5675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","tag-new-york-times"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pBCzY-1tx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5677,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5675\/revisions\/5677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinrkosar.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}