On the morning after <strong>President Barack Obama&rsquo;s </strong>big health care speech, I asked two members of Congress if the address had changed any minds.</p><p>Democratic congressman <strong>Emanuel Cleaver </strong>hesitated nary a nanosecond.</p><p>&ldquo;Absolutely not,&rdquo; he shot back.</p><p>His colleague, Republican <strong>Sam Graves </strong>of Tarkio, Mo., didn&rsquo;t mince words, either.</p><p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t see anybody changing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I saw it as a very partisan speech.&rdquo;</p><p>So much for soaring rhetoric, poetic cadences and ringing, tear-inducing references to the late Sen. <strong>Ted Kennedy.</strong></p><p> For me last week, our politics suddenly seemed off-kilter, out of sorts, utterly off-track. A system that had been suffering from out-of-control partisanship &mdash; from <em>both </em>sides &mdash; had finally hit a wall and broken into a hundred parts.</p><p> A once-popular new president, in his first months in office and fresh from a 53 percent win in November, was in danger of losing his chief initiative, a defeat that could undermine a wildly ambitious agenda.</p><p>Even some of the most finely nuanced public rhetoric since <strong>Ronald Reagan </strong>was unable to shift congressional opinion, offer the promise of compromise and break up a dense partisan stalemate over an issue that has confounded presidents for half a century.</p><p> Some of our most distinguished leaders known for goodwill and bipartisan intentions continued to view the health care debate from intensely partisan viewpoints.</p><p> There was former Sen. <strong>Bob Dole, </strong>a chief crafter of a widely circulated bipartisan health care plan, saying on Thursday morning that he &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t hear a great deal (in Obama&rsquo;s speech) that would help Republican members vote for a bill.&rdquo;</p><p> He conceded that leaders of both parties &ldquo;never disagreed on the goals.&rdquo; His only words of hope: &ldquo;There is a long way to go, but there still is a slim opportunity.&rdquo;</p><p>A week or so before, GOP Sen. <strong>J</strong><strong>ohn McCain </strong>of Arizona had been in town with fellow Republican Sens. <strong>Kit Bond </strong>of Missouri and <strong>Mitch McConnell, </strong>the Senate minority leader from Kentucky. The three took turns throwing haymakers at the Democratic health care agenda as outlandishly expensive and one that could lead to rationing and outsized budget deficits for years to come.</p><p> &ldquo;So far,&rdquo; McCain said, &ldquo;there&rsquo;s been no bipartisanship involved in reforming health care in America.&rdquo;</p><p> The Democrats have shot back that key Republicans, such as Iowa&rsquo;s Sen. <strong>Chuck Grassley, </strong>haven&rsquo;t bargained in good faith, haven&rsquo;t truly tried to strike a bipartisan deal.</p><p> No question Democrats have overreached and mismanaged the debate, as former House Speaker <strong>Dennis Hastert </strong>told me when he visited Johnson County not long ago.</p><p>Regardless of the causes, we are stuck. Somehow it seems more intractable than ever.</p><p>The school district that my kids attend last week demanded that parents return permission slips before my sixth-grader could watch a president speak to them on TV. A congressman from South Carolina interrupted a presidential address with &ldquo;You lie!&rdquo;</p><p>We have hit a wall. All these years of spinmeisters and consultants crafting messages tailored to red America and blue America have cleaved us cleanly in two.</p><p> So a whole host of questions loom: How do we get out of this? And who out there can lead us back so that we can deal with big, meaty issues such as health care reform and the deficit and the future of Social Security, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq?</p><p> Even more unsettling: <em>Can</em> we get out of this?</p><p>&bull;&bull;&bull;</p><p>A spokesman for Missouri Gov. <strong>Jay Nixon </strong>called last week&rsquo;s staff shake-up routine.</p><p>Given the timing, that is a little tough to believe. Nixon, a Democrat, has been weathering criticism over a delay in reporting elevated bacteria levels at Lake of the Ozarks.</p><p> Among the staff changes: Chief of staff <strong>John Watson </strong>no longer is the liaison to the Department of Natural Resources. <strong>Dustin Allison, </strong>a deputy chief of staff who had been accused of offering jobs in exchange for favorable votes by lawmakers, was removed from any liaison responsibility.</p><p>A Nixon spokesman said none of the changes had anything to do with the DNR controversy. It was all part of a plan &ldquo;to regularly rotate&rdquo; liaison responsibilities.