30 August 2013

Our Nation's Capital

This past Sunday I happened to turn to the PBS program Bill Moyers & Company. Moyers was interviewing Mark Leibovich author of the newly released "This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America’s Gilded Capital." Watch it here. You can read a short review at The Economist website here.

Never had I appreciated the speed of the revolving door that permits Senators, Congressman, and their staffers to draft and pass monstrous federal statutes and then after "retirement" make millions lobbying for or against its implementation.. Leibovich names all the names and then goes on to indict what passes for journalism in a media/celebrity saturated age.

Some humor: Harry Reid, a senator for Nevada, could “pass for an oddball taxidermist who keeps a closet full of stuffed pigeons.” The slimmed Mr Clinton looks like “a skinny older guy wearing an oversize rubber Bill Clinton head.”

But Leibovich's descriptions end leaving one feeling a cross between sadness and disgust. What can be done? Neither Leibovich nor I have an answer. After all, in a democracy we get the government we deserve.

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