The Capitol Visitor Center has finally opened as a symbol of congressional over-runs and poor management. Years late and many millions over budget, the Center is a towering example of the inability of Congress to balance its own checkbook. The only problem may be stinking citizens and rotting souls. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said that members will celebrate that they will no longer have to “smell the tourists” while Sen. Jim DeMint has denounced the building as being Godless.
The building ultimately cost $621 million rather than $71 million — and was completed three years late.
Reid noted that “In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. “And that may be descriptive but it’s true. Well, that is no longer going to be necessary.”
Realizing that this seemed more suited for the opening of the Roman Senate under Augustus, he added: “My staff has always said, ‘Don’t say this,’ but I’m going to say it again because it’s so descriptive because it’s true.” Methinks that Reid should listen to his staff.
The only thing missing was members with perfumed, lacey handkerchiefs over their mouths prodding citizens out of their way with riding crops . . . and of course Madame Thérèse Defarge stitching a new name into her knitting.
In the meantime, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is suggesting that the stink is the rotting soul of Congress after denouncing the Center as Godless. He released a statement including the following critique of the false prophet of government:
“The current CVC displays are left-leaning and in some cases distort our true history. Exhibits portray the federal government as the fulfillment of human ambition and the answer to all of society’s problems. This is a clear departure from acknowledging that Americans’ rights ‘are endowed by their Creator’ and stem from ‘a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.’ Instead, the CVC’s most prominent display proclaims faith not in God, but in government. Visitors will enter reading a large engraving that states, ‘We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.’ This is an intentional misrepresentation of our nation’s real history, and an offensive refusal to honor America’s God-given blessings.
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Reid’s comment made me think of 2 things:
1. Michael Sandel’s comment that we live in the age of the gated community, and,
2. the phrase “the great unwashed” which I learned via the google was “coined by the Victorian novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton… in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford: ‘He is certainly a man who bathes and ‘lives cleanly’, (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed).'”
Interestingly, this book begins with the famous lines “It was a dark and stormy night…”
From OneNewsNow (in Christ):
“A constitutional scholar says the new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, DC, is an extremely biased and historically inaccurate exhibit that “twists and distorts” the Constitution.
The new $621 billion Capitol Visitor Center features an exhibition hall that is dominated by a very large marble wall called “The Wall of Aspirations.” Dr. Matthew Spalding of The Heritage Foundation says the exhibit is not about the Constitution’s limits on powers delegated to the government, but instead lists aspirations such as unity, freedom, common defense, knowledge, exploration, and general welfare, and then points back to where they are found in the Constitution.”
I can’t help but draw comparisons from this to how the auto companies request for bail out money is treated vis a vis the banks/financial industry. Bank/finance managers are connected to the highest levels of our govt. Certainly the decisions they have made both rival and even surpass the incredibly poor management choices of auto exeutives. Yet not one bank/finance player was asked to go before Congress to give their plans for restructuring and heading back into the black. In fact, the only black invovled with them has been the secret 8 trillion dollars, so far, handed over to them by their BFF’s in treasury.
Meanwhile as millions of jobs for the “great unwashed” are hanging in the balance, one would think the hoi polloi was completely responsible for the ruin of the auto companies (and quite possibley the entire economy). Congress acted in only a few days to rescue billionaires in finance but they have only scorn for those greedy auto workers making $35.00 per hour.
It would appear Congress favors the Walmart model for the poor and middle class. Those types may do without jobs or find ones with low wages and no benefits. The state govts. may pick up the tab for their health care and the food banks can feed them. Rich Americans are showing their class hatred. This is foolhardy and in the long run, it won’t even work for most of them.
apres moi, le deluge
He really knows how to make people feel welcome. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been asked to write for Hallmark Cards. “To my darling wife. Just looking at you makes me want to vomit. All my love…”
Yankee:
Funny you should ask. He does indeed perspire (not sweat) but it is immediately and carefully removed from his person by his staff, scented with perfume, and then reapplied. Obviously, you are not a member of the bourgeoisie. More is the pity.
Does Mr. Reid not sweat?
Wouldn’t some air cleaners be a lot cheaper than a whole new building?
Well played, mespo.
Torts,
So true. It’s not like meeting your lobbyist for breakfast. Maybe a little like going golfing though because some of the caddies do sweat.
Tourists who hoof it all around town in August stink, and as former Hill staff, the Majority Leader has a point on this one. People pit out in their shirts and then come to visit their congressman’s office. It’s not pleasant.
Oh baby, these are golden oldies.
Smelly Citizen: Please Senator,the economy is in ruins, the people are starving,they need your help.
Senator REID: Are the workhouses all filled? Have the prisons reached their maximum capacities?
Smelly Citizen: Sir…most would rather die than subject themselves to such horrific places.
Senator REID: Then let them do so and decrease the surplus population.
This is from, “Bridge of Birds a Novel of an Ancient China that Never Was” by Barry Hughart. The protaganist has been sent to Peking to seek out a fortune teller:
“…I banged at the nearest door. It was opened by a haughty eunuch who was attired in clothes that I had previously associated with royalty, and he ran his eyes from my bamboo hat to my shabby sandals, clapped a perfumed handkerchief to his nose, and ordered me to state my business…The door slammed in my face, and when I tried the next house I exited through the air…while a bejeweled lackey shook his fist and screamed,…back to your mud hovel, you insolent peasant!”
Pure genius Mespo.
Forgive the dyslexia, make that “nemesis.”
“It is extraordinary to me that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done to my horses?” —
—DeFarge’s menesis in “Tale of Two Cities,” Marquis St. Evrémonde, fretting over the injury to his horse following its trampling of a child to death in the street.
“In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. “And that may be descriptive but it’s true. Well, that is no longer going to be necessary.”
–Sen. Harry Reid fretting over the injury to his patrician yet tender sensibilities caused by malodorous emanations from the same rabble who placed him in his high position and pay his inadequate salary.
I notice a faint parallel.