Senior White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett said on ABC's This Week this morning that the GOP civil war in the NY-23 special congressional election shows that the Republican Party's leadership has become "more and more extreme, and more and more marginalized."

Yesterday, moderate GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava suspended her campaign after polls showed her trailing both the Democrat and a Conservative Party candidate that many prominent Republicans had declared their support for.

"It's rather telling when the Republican Party forces out a moderate Republican," Jarrett said. "And it says, I think, a great deal about where the Republican Party leadership is right now."

I think it's becoming more and more extreme, and more and more marginalized.

"And if that's the direction they want to go -- fine," Jarrett said.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, appearing earlier on CNN, suggested that the NY-23 situation is the exception rather than the rule and that "we want moderates in our party."

Regardless, Democrats are now trying to convince Scozzafava to back Democrat Bill Owens in the NY-23 race. "We would love to, of course, have her support," Jarrett said.

Pushed by George Stephanopoulos about President Obama's promises to get bipartisan backing for many of his policies, Jarrett tried to shift blame back to the GOP.

"What we've seen from the Republicans is really the desire to have the status quo, and George, that's not acceptable anymore."

Obama, she said, has "reached out. He's listened. He's reached across the aisle."

"Ultimately it's up to the Republicans to decide if they want to be a constructive force and come to the table and work with us in a positive way," she said. "The door is always open."

And on the recent announcement that Afghan President Hamid Karzai's main rival was dropping out of the Nov. 7 runoff election, Jarrett said that "we don't think that it's gonna add a complication to the strategy."

Late Update: Here's the video.