Control Breeds Suspicion?

Here's some data from the General Social Survey about how much confidence Americans have in various institutions. These are the averages between 1972 and 2006:

Institution	Percent With "A Great Deal" of Confidence
Organized labor	12.50%
Congress	13.70%
Television	13.80%
Press	16.90%
Executive branch	17.20%
Major companies	25.30%
Banks and financial institutions	27.10%
Organized religion	29.40%
Education	31.10%
Supreme Court	33.00%
Military	38.50%
Scientific community	43.10%
Medicine	48.30%

A few interesting things stand out in this survey, most of all the four government institutions: Congress, Executive branch, Supreme Court, and Military. It seems that the more direct control the public has over the institution, the less confidence they have in it. My initial guess is that more direct control means more attempts to grab the voters directly, meaning less believability of claims of neutrality. This would also explain why the press is ranked very low and the two highest are science and medicine--like the judges and soldiers, people see doctors and scientists as being coldly rational necessary for their job. Robin Hanson, though, would have a different opinion as to why people have so much confidence in medicine: we're afraid to be suspicious of them.