MY FIRST APARTMENT in Washington had an excellent view of the Capitol dome. Except that you had to climb a fire ladder from the hallway outside my apartment door to get to the roof to enjoy it. And even then, after you safely set down your drink in order to pull yourself up by the hands onto the pebble-covered rooftop, further difficulties awaited as the warm weather encouraged trees to grow leaves and thus block what was really an excellent view of the Capitol dome. So it was only during the cold months, when late autumn had fully pulled back the green curtains of springtime and summer, that you could, having made the awkward ascent from the hallway outside my door to the rooftop, enjoy this really unparalleled view of the Capitol dome from my first apartment in Washington. Alright, the view was merely average for the neighborhood. An even better one could be found walking across Pennsylvania Avenue on your way to the neighborhood dives.
Still, during my first few months in Washington, nothing and no one so predictably accelerated my heart rate as the sight of that great gleaming white bowl of democracy. The wise words of P.J. O’Rourke had taught me it was a parliament of whores. And a college major in political science had demystified congressional power, showing it to be divided among parties, committees, subcommittees, geographical belts, and many other representative slivers of interest. I knew that Constitutional arrangements practically guarantee a perpetual scrimmage among separate factions trading marginal legislative advantage, while a generalized institutional inertia reliably delivers pork but nothing for the young soul that wants to change the world. And still, the U.S. Capitol regularly gave me the goose bumps as I’d stroll its grounds, shivering in the conviction that no other government anywhere included so great an institution.
