Four days in the nation's capital

I arrived back in my LA house from Washington DC at two in the morning today and am still pretty groggy. So take the following for what it’s worth. But for work-related reasons, I have visited nation’s capital more times in the last couple of years than I had in the rest of my life combined. At first I found it exciting, indeed heady, to be in the center of things. Increasingly, I find it depressing. No matter whom you are talking to, the atmosphere is grim and extraordinarily polarized, as if the air itself were polluted by hate and suspicion. Few people think objectively about anything from global warming to the war on terror. They just seek advantage over each other. You are in a world of such mutual loathing between the two sides that everyone seems to have checked their brains at the door. Today’s party line vote on Iraq is just another predictable manifestation of that. Meanwhile, the world continues to be the world. Iran has taken British servicemen hostage in the Shatt al Arab. Ahmadinejad the Mad is on his way to New York. And our politicians bicker on. The word morons is a euphemism.

UPDATE: Ahmad the Mad is apparently not coming to New York. Perhaps he’s afraid we would kidnap him.