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Out, Damned Washington! Out, We Say.
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“Out, damned spot! Out, I say.” So says the demented Lady Macbeth.
Not demented but exercised, the tea party movement says, “Out, damned Washington! Out, we say.”They say this even as they are trying to get into Washington themselves—indeed to take it over. And no Republican politician, no matter how aware of the naivete of this new dimension in conservatism, dare ignore them.
They are a force to be accommodated for now. In time, they will be blunted by being incorporated.
Running against Washington is not new. It worked like a dream for Ronald Reagan who preached the need to reduce the size of government but let it grow in wondrous ways. Astonishingly, he won re-election in 1984 by again campaigning against Washington, even though he had been president for the past four years.
Part of Reagan’s genius was in channeling the anger of Middle America to his purposes. He was so alluring a figure to Republicans that many were prepared to abandon businesses and careers to serve—often far down the ladder—in his administration.
In the far off days of Jack Kennedy, Washington still had its charm. Knowing people in Washington meant something—at least socially, if not financially and politically. Chicago bankers, New York consultants and Western cattlemen all came to Washington, where they would lunch with minor political appointees.
These lunches in the nation’s capital impressed their colleagues back home.
As in the Reagan years, capable businessmen (it was mostly men then) abandoned careers to serve in the administration.Edward Stockdale, a successful Miami Beach realtor, gave up everything to serve Kennedy as ambassador to Ireland and in other ways. Bill Ruder, a brilliant New York public relations executive, quit his company just to serve as one of those assistant secretaries in the Commerce Department. His PR firm, Ruder and Finn, went into a severe decline without its top man.
There is a difference between those who came to Washington to serve in the Kennedy administration and those who came later, and with the same passion, to serve in the Reagan administration: The Kennedy recruits felt they were doing it for America, whereas Reagan’s people did it for Reagan.
This made them more political and, as a result, they were more frustrated. They wanted the world to know that their man, Reagan, deserved everybody’s adulation and respect. People like John Herrington, who worked his way from the personnel office at the White House to being secretary of energy, would explode with rage when people didn’t speak deferentially of Reagan.
There was plenty of the cult of personality around Kennedy, but it enhanced the idea of Washington rather than diminished it. Washington was cool in the time of Kennedy. Reagan was cool, but not Washington, in the time of Reagan.
For today’s tea party set, Washington is an alien bridgehead, manned by Euro socialists with U.N. numbers on their speed dials.
Anyone who has ever walked a picket line or joined a mass protest knows the joy of being at the barricades, the adrenalin rush, the thrill of righteousness. The tea party people have had enough and they’re not going to take it anymore.
So have most of us. We are the victims of insensitive government agencies, stagnant wages and large, faceless corporations with automated phone systems.
Any full-blooded citizen who doesn’t feel the rage ought to see a doctor—if he can afford that. The pull of the tea party is there.But hating Washington is neither a remedy nor a policy, especially when there is no leader like Reagan to produce a policy.
It also is a trifle disingenuous to be trying to take over the place you have so reviled.
Without a leader, Washington will swallow the tea party activists, who will either drift to the center of Republican thought or settle for the no-man’s land of eccentric nobodies, like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, on the left, and Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, on the right.
Weak tea, indeed. And poor Lady Macbeth died without getting the stain out.
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By Their Parties, Ye Shall Know Them
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The trouble with Washington’s social scene is that it’s a horizontal city — and, try as one may, it’s hard to escape one’s assigned social stratum.
The lawyers know the lawyers; the journalists drink with the journalists; the lobbyists lobby the lobbyists (and the lobbyists-in-training, the Capitol Hill staffers).
By contrast, other cities are vertical. The most vertical city of all is New York. And Dublin is right behind it.
The test of horizontal versus vertical is in a city’s parties. If everyone at a party is either known to you or is in the same line of work — health care, information technology, law enforcement — you are living in a horizontal city; and you are trapped in a stratum that colors what you hear and ultimately think.
In a vertical city, a party is a wondrous place where you’ll learn things other than those things you think you know. A party that includes, say, an actor, a financier, a nurse, a tailor and a writer is a brew of delights.
In my experience, you’ll find such a party in New York above all other cities. However, there always seems to be an interesting mix at social gatherings in Ireland, and Dublin in particular. Generally, the Irish are so well read that they can talk to anyone about anything.
The legend goes that Washington parties are where things get done. If so, I’ve never been to those parties. I think in the days of Jack Kennedy, intimate, influential dinner parties — perhaps at the home of columnist Joe Alsop — were important.
Perle Mesta hosted parties that were as famous as they may have been influential (in Harry Truman’s day). Sally Quinn, wife of the storied Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, has established herself as a Washington hostess with clout. And NPR’s Cokie Roberts is said to put on a great party.
But these are Washington parties for the like-minded and that’s the problem.
These days, I think the best party-giver in Washington is Gloria Dittus, a public relations phenomenon who recently sold her company but is still hosting parties at her Washington home. Just this week, she gave a grand bash for legendary White House reporter Helen Thomas and her new book, “Listen Up, Mr. President,” co-written with Craig Crawford.
Dittus knows how to throw a party.
First, she has a stunning home in the fashionable Kalorama section of Washington. But that’s just the beginning. She always has valet parking and coat-checking. And her parties are full bar and groaning board.
The party swirls from room to room in a natural flow. No bottlenecks at the bars.
Dittus knows who to invite across the social spectrum. Are great political deals cut at one of her parties? Maybe. But don’t blame her, or any hostess. Since bipartisanship has been replaced with the new Washington ethic of “my party right or wrong,” the deals are done intraparty in the depressing backrooms of Congress.
The other prevailing Washington value has reduced the party attendance: If you are in elected office, you’ll never be seen to take more than one glass of wine. Hardly worth dragging yourself across town for that.
Time was when at 6 p.m. the bottles came out all over Washington, and in the Capitol itself. Some of the best parties were impromptu ones in congressional offices. Nowadays, you have to settle for water; carbonated, if you’re lucky.
Then there’s the question of drinking and driving. Most of Washington’s denizens live in the suburbs and they have to drive. By contrast, parties thrive in New York and London, where there is more public transportation. But it should be noted that London parties tend to suffer from the same rigidities as Washington. Call it capital party syndrome.
Across the Atlantic, our democratic partners are still enjoying a drink. There are bars scattered all over the British Parliament, and two very busy bars in the much smaller Irish Parliament.
The principal virtue of partying is that it’s bipartisan. Until bipartisanship comes back, there is always the sainted Gloria Dittus. –For the Hearst-New York Times Syndicate
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The lost art of debate — and other wordy topics
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Guests: Aram Bakshian, author and critic; Atul Singh, Fair Observer
Obama’s strengths and weaknesses; the Internet
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Guests: Tim Farley, Sirius XM Radio; Adam Clayton Powell III, University of Southern California; Wayne Madsen, Wayne Madsen Report
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World events as the U.S. elections get fully underway
January 9th, 2012
Guests Arnaud de Borchgrave, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Andrei Sitov, Itar-Tass; Al Leeds, The Washington Post
The Joys of Transportation
January 2nd, 2012
Guests Bill Gouse, Transportation Consultant – Originally Broadcast October 16, 2011