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.
Others might have dismayed over what it didn’t accomplish, but not I, at least not then anyway, during those early days. It was enough that the thing existed, for in my mind the U.S. Congress was its own end and not to be measured by which bills its current occupants had passed. I was little more than a tourist, and the building’s nearness filled me with a teary, grudging respect for the physical embodiment of our Founders’ greatest masterstroke, a limited democratic government that wouldn’t be captured and chucked about like a dog’s toy for the ambitions of a Napoleon or a Lenin or a Hitler, that would speak for the people without authorizing a mob, that might get many large things wrong, but nothing large enough to invalidate our Founders’ wise design. Being new in town, I had few friends; being a young journalist, I had little money for groceries, let alone dining out. But walking over to the Capitol steps, as I did two or three times a week, to stand on the front porch of our great republic and look out over the national mall and consider Lincoln, seated two miles away, I had my company and my feast and I silently reveled in the good fortune of being a citizen of the United States of America.
Had I done nothing more than stroll its grounds in this state of intense adoration, I’d probably still consider the U.S. Capitol a personal landmark. But as it happened, it was also at the Capitol, on the north side, waiting for the fireworks on the Fourth of July five years ago, that I met the woman who became my wife. I was seated atop a wall alongside the walkway with several other people, acquaintances mostly. She, Cynthia, my not-even-girlfriend-back-then, came by to say hello to one of her housemates, who was with the same group of people sitting on the wall. The housemate was a friend of a friend of mine. Cynthia and I were introduced. This being Washington, one of our first conversations was about Newt Gingrich. It was your basic pro-or-con setup with me arguing that the speaker of the House was fighting for civilization and her arguing that he was obviously a jerk and a loose cannon. On our wedding day, we popped over to the Capitol to be photographed. These pictures of the two of us, I in my tux and she in magnificent white, standing before the fountain at the top of the west lawn, hang on the walls of our home.
This sweaty afternoon, July 2, 2002, I walked around the Capitol. It was a construction site as about two dozen backhoes, bulldozers, and steamrollers shoved and heaped and pounded the park lanes and tree-shaded lawns on the building’s east side. Security efforts looked to be doubled and tripled. Cement barriers, metal dividers, fences and yet more fences–to fence off certain fences from other fences–lined the sidewalks and blocked off the steps and prohibited public access from everything important. No less than four lines of chain-link guarded a soundstage set up for the Independence Day celebration. They have taken away my view of the national mall and left me outside the gates of a fortress. The steps, where I had stood with my bride as a group of schoolchildren asked us if we were famous, are blocked off by a security guard and a police barrier.
This seems a small price for some added layer of safety. And the restrictions are making the national mall no less desirable a place to be as larger-than-usual crowds are expected despite the vague general threats hanging in the air. Even as we celebrate our independence, we proceed with extra caution. District cops are reported to be without a holiday on the Fourth and federal agencies say they are stepping up efforts. The FBI apparently now has a standard big-event anti-terrorist security plan that will be in effect. But Cynthia and I–lame-Os that we are–won’t be going to the mall. A consensus has emerged among our friends that it would be safer to visit a winery outside Charlottesville. My standard joke this week is that I’d prefer not to be in my house when it is bombed.
But it’s not like I’m leaving town permanently. For one, there’s a magazine to be put out on Friday. And, two, this place is my home. Indeed, my relatives from New York (and not the first contingent of war-weary New Yorkers to come see me since September 11) are visiting in a few weeks and I look forward to taking my nephew and niece around the Capitol. I have a file of historical information at my disposal for such trips, and I’ll shamelessly bore them with stories about how construction on the Washington Monument was stalled during the Civil War and how the Capitol building is positioned at the very center of the city and how if you stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial you can see the entire Washington Monument in the reflecting pool. My niece thinks we’re going to the “mall” to do some shopping. She may be disappointed when she realizes we’ve come to see the monuments and, of course, get a good look at the Capitol. But I, or one of her parents, will certainly make it clear that we’re sightseeing one of man’s greatest achievements. That should make her eyes roll.
David Skinner is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
