The Best Government Money Can Buy

Day Two was the first full day here on the East Coast for the Don-abee. We caught an early train and headed off to Washington, DC. If you are ever visiting DC, I strongly suggest you contact your Congressman before you go. One of the things they’ll do – even without a campaign contribution – is lend you a staff member for a few hours to give you a guided tour of the U. S. Capitol. I live in New Jersey’s first congressional district, home of Representative Rob Andrews, the first Democrat I ever voted for.

We arrived two hours before our scheduled tour time, so we did some sightseeing first. DC is a good walking city – all the more so given that the cabs are priced for lobbyists with expense accounts. We had more time than money, so we walked.

Union Station is just a few blocks from the Capitol, which is right across the street from the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. On the west side of the Capitol is the Mall which is straddled by the Smithsonian museums down to the Washington Monument. South of the Monument is the Jefferson Memorial; north of it is the White House. Continue down the Mall and you get to the World War II Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Vietnam Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. Then comes the Potomac and Arlington.

In those first two hours, we walked past the Court, the Capitol, found some of the Smithsonians we wanted to see later, then to King George III’s castle, and then back to Andrews’ office.

There are 435 Representatives in the House and every one of them gets an office with a window. As such, there are three big buildings next to the Capitol just for them. And while it takes X-rays and a body cavity search to get in to those buildings, once you’re in you’re on your own trying to find the right office. The Don-abee and I got lost and I came as close as ever to becoming a guest of the Capitol Police at that point.

Quick aside: I consider myself to be more libertarian than anything else. I usually side Republican for fiscal reasons, but I see the Religious Right as an affront to the concept of individual liberty and as such can be inclined to support the Democrats in certain cases. At present, I would like to see the tri-fecta broken up; I want at least one house in Congress switch sides in this year’s election. For this to happen, I think the Dems need to entice the moderates who voted Republican in 2004, not cater to the hard left who would never vote Republican if their lives counted on it.

The Don-abee and I were discussing this as we were lost in the sea of House office suites. A guy dressed in a maintenance-type uniform was pushing a cart full of notebooks when we walked past the office of Rep. Murtha of Pennsylvania. He and Sen. John Kerry are at the center of the cut-and-run debate. His stance is very popular on the left, not so much in the center or right.

I turn to the Don-abee and say “Ooh, Murtha. If the Democrats want to take the House this year, that’s someone they need to shut up.” The guy pushing the cart slowed down just a bit and turned, then gave me the stink eye. It was then that I realized that talk of silencing certain politicians is probably not well received in their own office building. While I meant that the party leaders should keep him out of the press, it could easily be thought to mean he should be silenced by less civil means.

I added some quick clarification comments about frightening the moderates away, and he went back to pushing his cart. But I kept wondering when someone in a suit was going to ask us to step this way.

Our staff tour was led by an intern – a young attractive poly-sci major working with Andrews for the summer. I could quickly see that the Don-abee was awestruck – he refused to talk throughout the entire tour. She gave us a great tour and answered every question that we – well, I – had.

After the Capitol, we did the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We were going to see the American History Museum, but that was closed due to the flooding earlier in the week. We then went to the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond. “I thought it would be bigger than that,” said the Don-abee. I guess you can’t please everyone. The bug zoo at the Natural History Museum smelled like some hard core chemicals had been released. Either a kid threw up on the carpet or something that had to be killed quickly escaped from its cage.

We then walked the memorial circuit, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, and Lincoln. It was atop the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, overlooking the Washington Monument and Mall, staring at the Capitol in all its glory that it all sunk in.

“Fuck it,” I said. “We’ve been walking for eight hours. Let’s take a cab back.”

On the train ride back to Philadelphia, we wound up sharing a table with a former Assistant Secretary of Transportation under the first President Bush. He was originally hired into the Reagan administration by then Vice President-elect Bush. He helped oversee airline deregulation, the sudden turnover of air traffic controllers, and was a voting member of the Amtrak board. It was two hours of very interesting conversation.

Once back in Philly, we picked up Ms N (she had to work that day … ha!) and headed down to South Street for cheesesteaks at Jim’s Steaks.