Where Are YOU?
Here you have crusaders dancing alongside sleazy profiteers coupled with more than a fair sampling of idiots and intellectuals, with the former, unfortunately usually holding higher positions of power. It is the only city in the United States that can declare war, raise your federal taxes, or reduce your Social Security benefits.
The decisions reached in these few square miles of monuments and mockeries make legions of people either furious or euphoric, and those sides keep switching depending on who is in control of the government at any given time.
And the fights, spins, and conspiracies concocted and then carried out to hold or regain power consumes every ounce of energy that enormously bright and talented people can give it. The swirling, ever-changing mosaic has too many frenetically moving parts for any outsider to even come close to comprehending what is really going on. It is like a lethal kindergarten that never ends.
-The Collectors by David Balducci