| 26 July 2006 Epiphany The temperature was rising back toward normal in Washington, which is to say that cold front had passed away to the chill waters of the north Atlantic, and the warm, wet Gulf air was awirling back, damping the shirt between the shoulder blades. I was getting disoriented at the desk on the sixth floor of the Bus Depot, and decided to get some air and see if I could wake up enough to keep simulating work. Down on the concrete, I floated along with the throng on the street, reveling in the crush of the city. The heat brings out the best in the people. The Homeless are as comfortable as they are going to be all year, the men have their jackets off, and the women look fantastic in their sandals and gauzy dresses. I was not out looking for an epiphany, just some air. I had no goal, no air conditioning watering hole, though I toyed with the idea, briefly. The old timers used to do that, but those days are gone. My path took me toward the White House, which is guarded by the Treasury Department's Greek monolith. Pennsylvania Avenue is closed off for vehicle traffic due to the terrorist threat, and traffic is sparse approaching the 14th Street artery that runs south to the bridge. I passed a church with which I was not familiar. I fancy myself a local expert on this part of downtown, and have been watching carefully as the buildings, one by one, have been razed to create more expensive office spaces for the legion of lobbyists who besiege the Federal part of the city. The ecclesiastic buildings tend to be more interesting than others, since they have a longer shelf-life. This one was exceptional in that regard, and I had never heard a word about it. Reading the plaque on the wall, I discovered this pale edifice with its single crenellated tower was the Church of the Epiphany, Episcopal, and it is the only surviving church from before the Civil War. That is a remarkable thing. I have visited the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where President Lincoln worshipped. But although it is the same congregation, the original building was razed long ago. They only kept the pew where the President sat. The Church of the Epiphany has been modified a bit, but it is essentially the same building where Mr. Lincoln came to attend the memorial service for one of his Generals in 1862, and where Secretary of War Stanton began to attend services in those dark days. He pointedly occupied the pew vacated by Senator Jefferson Davis, who had a new job in Richmond for the duration of the war. I walked in to take a look around, thinking of Senators, and the ways of the government. I was amazed I had never run across this place before, and was studying the memorials in the lobby when a young man handed me a program, and I realized there was a choir singing in the sanctuary. I entered through an elaborate glass door and felt the music swell around me. The young people were singing “Shenandoah” as I took a place against the back wall. I listened to the words about the old rivers, and being far away from home. A tear run down my cheek. I don't think I have been getting enough sleep. I dropped a couple bucks in the plastic offering box when the singing was over, and dried my cheeks as I walked back toward the office. It was interesting to think that generations of senators had worshipped there, since I was doing a memo on a Senator from Alabama, and that is what was putting me to sleep before I stepped out for an epiphany. Richard C. Shelby was the subject of the memo. He is currently a Republican, having left the Democrats a decade or so ago, when they fell out of fashion back home. He is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and also chairs the Appropriations Sub-committee on Commerce, Justice and Science. I used to deal with his staff when I worked the Hill, and he has cast a long shadow on all the activities over which he had oversight responsibility through his dual role on Appropriations. I vividly recall being summoned with my Boss at the time to be lectured, one-on-two, by the Senator on the meaning of the term "earmark." I did not know its power at the time, but later, attending the official opening ceremony at the multi-million dollar Richard C. Shelby Center for Missile and Space Analysis down in Huntsville, I saw it portrayed vividly in concrete and brick. The Shelby Center is located on property owned by the US Army at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The arsenal became a key facility in the development of the US ballistic missile program when the War Department, as it was then known, scooped up German rocket scientists, led by the legendary Werner von Braun under a relocation program known as Operation PAPERCLIP. Huntsville was considered a secure and remote location for the Germans to continue their work on the V-2 rockets and develop new systems for the Army, and later the Air Force. Long-time Alabama Senator Lister Hill was a Democratic whip through the period, and adept at how the system can be used to help the home state. Lister served in the Senate from 1938-1969, and thus overlapped the King of the Earmark, legendary Senator Robert C. Byrd,. He had an advantage over his contemporaries in bringing home the bacon. It was not far to go. He used the proximity of his native West Virginia to draw a variety of Federal activities from Washington to that state. In the early 1990s, Byrd successfully relocated components of the FBI to Clarksburg, WVA, in a sort of mass-hostage taking. He caused the state-of-the-art fingerprint laboratory to be built there, and was actively engaged in a campaign to take parts of CIA and DIA captive as well, and hold them out there in the hills. I worked at those places at the time, and it was pretty emotional. I should have supported the move. If I had bought a trailer out in the hollow in West Virginia, I would be retired by now, and not pounding the sweltering streets. Senator Shelby is no Richard Byrd, but he is pretty darned good at getting things for Alabama. He left the Intelligence Committee for bigger game in 2000. Before he left, he managed to put several buildings on the Redstone Arsenal, including the massive one that bears his name. . The Army was nearly apoplectic about that. The tradition in that organization is that you are supposed to be dead before having something named for you. I contend that spoils the fun. The reason I was working on the memo was a press report that exposed some of the fun the Senator has been having with the FY-07 budget. He has earmarked more than $100 million to build facilities at Huntsville for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a new forensic lab for the FBI. Taken in the aggregate, with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, over two and a half billion dollars in federal investment has been made at Redstone with the Senator's assistance. The point to my memo was that since this is the way the game is played, our corporate leadership ought to be aware of it. Not that it would change anything we do. I just thought it might be useful in framing strategies. I have played the earmark game before, unwillingly, and come to realize it is a full-contact sport. That is the problem when you get something from the Senate. The rules of the game are that you are supposed to follow through after someone does something for you. Or to you, as the case may be. My attitude has changed. If there is a double-wide and a porch on it, I just might be up for it. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |