Good post, doc. However, I do think that the failure to "work together" has a lot to do with the political climate that republicans themselves created during the 2008 campaign. You can't call someone a radical possibly muslim marxist who hates america and then, as soon as the election is over, turn around and work with that guy towards sensible legislation. Ask olympia snowe what it's like to try to work out a compromise...
This is not to excuse democrats and they definitely take a huge share of the blame, but it's hard to make policy when the other side is more interested in politics.
And as far unemployment goes, we had a housing glut which also led to a glut in construction jobs. The sad reality of it is that a lot of those people are going to have to find different types of work if there are fewer new houses being built. I might be wrong about this and I know the recovery has been going better in my state than a lot of others, but it seems like most of the folks having a hard time finding work are tradesmen or construction people, so what might be needed eventually is some retraining for those people. I'd also like to see more policies to encourage jobs in manufacturing at home, although that might end up being labeled socialism...