I like Leonard Pitts:

"The other day, I went looking for statistics to illustrate our division, numbers to prove that we are further apart on more issues than we've ever been before. So I turned to the Gallup organization and looked up some data. And what I found surprised me.

Let's take abortion, for instance. Surely, there is no more divisive issue in American life, no question with more potential to put us at each other's throats.
Well, here's what I found: 29 years ago, 75% of us thought it should be legal, either in certain circumstances or upon demand. In 2004, 80% of us feel the same way. In other words, the vast majority of us favors abortion in some form, and that number has barely changed in 30 years, except to edge up slightly.

Try another issue. Capital punishment. In the '70s, 66% of us favored it. Thirty years later, 71% do.

Same-sex relationships between consenting adults? Forty-five percent of us thought they should be legal in 1982. Fifty-two percent think so now.

Guns: Forty-four percent of us owned them in 1975. Forty-three percent do now.

Drugs: Sixty-six percent of us opposed the legalization of marijuana in 1977. Sixty-four percent do now.

Again, I'm not going to tell you that we haven't changed in three decades, or that there are not areas of sharp disagreement. Of course we have and of course there are.

But what struck me over and over as I kept looking at the polls was how remarkably united we were on so many questions and how absolutely consistent our opinions have been over the years."

There's a lot more to the column, on whether or not politics really is nastier than ever before (something on which I've opined several times in the past), and on whether or not we're really a hyper-polarized nation. Good stuff.