"The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy."

Full disclosure:  I'm an Ivy League grad.

The above is a quote from a fascinating essay by Mike Lofgren who decries the effects on government of what he calls the "Deep State", and intricate and symbiotic conglomerate of public and private institutions that, regardless of which party is in power and despite apparent gridlock, always manages to fund its pet projects.

You can read the entire essay at http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

"Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State — the White House advisers who urged Obama not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts who besought us to “stay the course” in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run — are careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither specifically Democrat nor Republican. Domestically, whatever they might privately believe about essentially diversionary social issues such as abortion or gay marriage, they almost invariably believe in the “Washington Consensus”: financialization, outsourcing, privatization, deregulation and the commodifying of labor. Internationally, they espouse 21st-century “American Exceptionalism”: the right and duty of the United States to meddle in every region of the world with coercive diplomacy and boots on the ground and to ignore painfully won international norms of civilized behavior."