I've seen Congress people talk about it at length on CSPAN. Granted, not necessarily a great vote of credibility, but does not fall under the headings of blogger or pop star.
These days, random joe blogger has more credibility than Congress.
Lots of people aren't happy with President Bush - he's got approval ratings somewhere in the low thirties, I think. Even less people are happy with Congress - they were in the 14% ballpark recently. I'm tired of the whole lot. There are some good Republicans, but I'd sacrifice them to wipe the slate clean.
I don't know. You can amend the constitution without congress, but that would require quite a lot of organization and "grass-roots" (I hate the phrase, but to use another cliche, it's used for lack of a better one) efforts. You could probably get started by picking off a few active and former members of congress to sort of "lead the charge", but the effort would have to be sustained through several election cycles, I think. You'd also have to make sure you leverage the precedent set by the 22nd amendment (presidential term limit).
It's a bootstrapping problem, and a particularly difficult one because there is a reasonable argument against it (people should be free to elect whomever they want).
It'll never happen, that's the reality. I wish it would, but at this point I have very little faith in government, in fact I have none. They're corrupt and the system is setup to keep it that way. The foxes have been running the hen house for a long time.
