Americans have concluded within the past year that their financial firms and auto companies don't work very well.

Many now seem to be drawing the same conclusion about their government, which, ironically, has been charged with saving those financial firms and auto companies.

The evidence for that conclusion arrives in the form of a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which finds Americans holding in low esteem the government -- and, in fact, much of Washington. To some extent, that's natural in a country weary of war and still scared by the economy. But the level of skepticism -- even cynicism -- is high by historical standards and surprising given the extent to which whole swaths of the nation have leaned on their government for a bailout in recent months.

What...