Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” talks about how a smart warrior needs to know his enemy. I think this is what Coburn really means when he talks about reading other sources of information. If you can look at your opponents philosophical approach to a problem, you can develop a better competing philosophy in the arena of ideas.
I think it's possible that Pelosi is a naive liberal. Mind you, I'm not positive about this, but she's certainly dumb enough. I seem to recall her saying that every month that we don't get an economic recovery package that 500 million Americans lose their jobs.
There is much hope for America with young conservative people like you on the horizon.