Keller @ Large: Good News, Bad News About Kennedy Institute

BOSTON (CBS) - I have good news and bad news about the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate, being formally opened Monday in ceremonies featuring remarks from the President.

First Look: Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate

First, the good news.

If you have a student at the middle-school level or higher, make sure their school has plans to take advantage of the Institute's unique interactive re-creation of the experience of being a U.S. Senator, complete with debate, negotiation, and everything else that goes into making legislation.

In the spirit of Ted at his best - collaborative, respectful and open to compromise – the Institute is an effort to teach kids how to get along and get something done in civic life. And even if your kid isn't interested in politics, those same lessons could prove very useful in the bullying, everyone-for-themselves internet culture they seem doomed to grow up in.

The bad news is, too many of the VIPs celebrating the Institute Monday are contributors to a Washington political culture that only rarely succeeds in living up to Ted Kennedy's ideal.

A new CBS News poll finds Congress getting its highest job-approval ratings in a year and a half – 22-percent. Almost 60-percent think Congress is even more dysfunctional now than a decade ago, a time that felt like a new low in foolish partisanship and grandstanding.

Speaking of grandstanding, we'll hear plenty of lip service from the DC crowd Monday to the Kennedy Institute's goals.

Too bad the first stiff post-ceremony breeze will blow all that goodwill out to sea.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

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