Sean Carroll on politicians and critics

While reading about the fight about how to fight Expelled, I came across a piece by Sean Carroll (prof here in Madison, gave a good introduction to Dawkins) titled Politicans and Critics. Honestly, I've sometimes felt things along those lines, and that they might be just to get the politicians and critics to ignore each other as much as humanly possible. However, the idealistic part of me wants to believe that the politicians can also be critics. Thoughts?