Yes. I think the idea is -- by the same token I pay car mechanics to learn more about their specialty than I do -- we're supposed to be able to trust our elected officials to find out more about a given political situation than we have time for, and vote the way we'd vote if we had time to learn all the details.

The problem appears to be that my elected officials don't seem to believe they are as much in the business of gathering and filtering information as I'd prefer.