Washington, D.C., is a beautiful place.
I visited there. I studied there. I worked there. I even roller-bladed many miles there. I can reliably report, however, that getting up Capitol Hill requires walking.
But in reality and in the nation's popular image, it's a dump. That's why calling the nation's capitol a swamp struck such a responsive and enduring chord among first GOP primary and then general election voters when Donald Trump began saying that in his first campaign.
He was talking about the state of politics there, its political mores and values, the hypocrisies, the sweet deal-making, and, above all, the failure to honestly listen and respond to the genuine frustrations and anger of voters who fell for the representatives' campaign promises.
Trump may not be the most virtuous spokesman for a campaign to restore mores and decency. But denouncing D.C. and the embedded establishments that have ruled there as the Swamp was a very effective campaign claim to set himself up as the outsider wading in to bring law and order to the town.
Or at least a different way of doing business.
Unlike so many politicians who win jobs there, Trump kept a large number of his campaign promises — the tax cuts, the deregulating and energy independence, crushing the murderous ISIS caliphate, restoring the military, and conservative judges. He even published a list of judges he would use to select Supreme Court justices. And he did.
That impressed me.
The secret sabotage and hoaxes arrayed against him were seriously corrosive to our politics and public spirit and as undemocratic as some of what he was accused of.
Unfortunately, Trump's need for fights and controversies, his vanity, name-calling, and inability to walk away after wins played right into his opponents' hands.
And, oh, look, they exemplified the dishonest double-dealing that Trump was talking about.
Turns out though, the District of Columbia really is an actual fetid swamp. The city was built on an active swamp because that was the land that the state of Maryland was happy to get rid of as a donation to the new country back in 1791.
Look at the photo above. That's the National Mall before it was the National Mall, looking back at the Capitol building under construction in 1860.
Although you could often hear cannon fire there during the Civil War from across the Potomac River, President Abraham Lincoln ordered construction to continue as a symbol of his faith in the resurrection of what became "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”.
And now, you and I and every other taxpayer are spending billions upon billions of dollars to combat the immense seepage of water that drains from as far away as West Virginia and flows beneath that beautiful city, undermining the foundations of the National Mall, among other glorious hallowed spots.
And a dozen federal agencies with their own arcane agendas and priorities cannot agree on solutions. That's what this week's audio commentary is all about.
I try not to be too predictable here, to write and speak about things that I think might interest others, as well as me. That's why your Comments are always so valuable.
The most recent audio looked at trees and my abiding affection for these vital things that live among us, give us shade, homes for wildlife, and temper our air for human consumption. And not just when we drag one of them into the house at this holiday time.
Last week's column, out on Christmas Eve, examined the role of faith in our presidential campaigns despite its fading across the country and even around the world.
A little sneak preview here now: In the next couple of days, I'll be posting here another of my ongoing occasional series of Memories, this one about the time I drove 150 miles an hour.
ICYMI, here's a recent holiday-themed Memory about the meaning of a Grandma's holiday visit and how that has endured two lifetimes.
