(Not So Rosy) Reflection on Graham's Washington

My take on:
"A Report on a Life Lived in Washington" by Barbara Howar

Barbara Howar’s piece about Washington D.C. in the 1950s (“on a time, a town, and a heroine all equally foolish”) is illuminating and confounding: what, really, is the essence of D.C.? After reading her writing, I had an image of cotton candy in my mind – people creating sweet things in the air where there once was nothing before. Whether she intended to describe D.C. politics as an air-filled dessert, or whether I have been influenced by the time I’ve spent here, politics seems to me to be some sort of grotesque spectacle. Fool the people, fool the people, fool the people.

At the time, very few opportunities were widely available to women. As Howar put it, “It was not an easy town for women seeking employment other than typing or stripping.” Howar came to D.C. with virtually no skills, and a resume containing a list of accolades far too short. Yet, although Howar was unqualified for, really, any job, her connection to Frank Boykin landed her a job on a vacant committee seat. There she stayed for a while, creating elaborate filing systems and fueling untrue rumors of her affairs with seniors in the business. Her boss was afraid to fire her, wary of the fact that she could be his colleague's mistress. Howar made herself indispensable in an artificial way.

Is this what politics is about? Howar states that she “sensed in those congressional days that every public figure had some clay about the feet and ankles. Not then and rarely since would I encounter a politician who was not forced to leave a part of his soul in the escrow somewhere on his climb to the top.” I think that her “sense” is keen, and that this is still the state of politics today. Don’t get me wrong – I love D.C. The city itself is great, educational, diverse, exciting and offers much socially. Even professionally, there are rewarding jobs within and out of the government (My internship is great, because I feel I am doing meaningful, legitimate, necessary work.).

My qualm is with a political scene that is much too heavily reliant on empty rhetoric, connections, lies, fluff, and being fake. We need to go back to the beginning of our country’s history when the government actually served a visible and felt purpose. Put an end to freak-show politics, where every move is monitored as if politicians are participants in a reality show, trying their hardest not to get voted off but accomplishing nothing substantial in the end. We need an influx of honest people, and we need to purge Washington of those people who are spinning cotton candy to tantalize our taste buds—after all, cotton candy leaves people hungry every time.