Year Round Governance

It is the last day I will be able to say I am not, and never have been, fifty-four years of age.

Thank goodness it is not one of the round numbers I would have to think about. Still, almost-birthdays are times to take stock, and examine one’s life. It is said that the unexamined life is not worth living. On the other hand, there is a certain comfort to putting ice in the cooler and examining something else altogether.

It was good to plunge in Big Pink’s pool late in the day, though it was so hot and muggy that the comfort was fleeting. I sighed and closed the windows on the little efficiency and turned on the air conditioning. This is the time, back in the day, that the capital became too soggy a place to work. Then the Government shut down and went to the shore for the summer and the public was safe.

Air conditioning make our year-round governance possible, so there you are. I was careful not to set the temperature too low. Until the moisture comes out of the air, the sudden chill can cause the convector unit to condense the moisture and flood the place.

I changed into shorts and sneakers and found an ancient ballcap from days in the Philippines, which is as humid a place as there is . It would be perfect to keep the sun out of my eyes.

I filled up the cooler and made my choice of beverages and nestled them within. I selected some assorted snacks for the tailgate and hauled everything out to the Little Black Truck. I fired up the 4.2 liter turbo-charged V-8 and flowed out onto Route 50 to claw my way downtown through the rush-hour traffic.

The radio told me that the Federal Aviation Administration is failing to oversee new safety risks posed by cost-cutting in the airline industry, though they did not tell me precisely what it was. And the Senate confirmed Janice Rogers Brown, a California judge, to the DC Federal Appeals court.

That has a certain amount of personal interest, since that circuit tends to get the cases involving regulations imposed by the Federal agencies. She is supposed to be so conservative as to be radical. I don’t know, and no one has bothered to give an example of her previous decisions.

These arguments don’t seem to be about that.

The President has been trying to nominate her for two years, so I guess this was a big deal. The vote was 56-43, and one democrat crossed the aisle to vote with the majority.

That makes it bi-partisan, so that will have to do for this week’s era of good feeling.

It certainly doesn’t feel that way over on the House side of the Hill.

I wish they still went home, or to the shore. The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is a guy named Peter Hoekstra. He is one of the harder members of the President’s maverick vanguard, and is from the Dutch region of western Michigan. He shares the  stubborn certainty of the people there.

He tried to insert language into the authorization bill that would restrict the powers of new Director of National Intelligence. Hoekstra attempted to limit Ambassador Negroponte’s authority to transfer intelligence specialists between agencies. Considering the fact that, under law, the DNI has to establish two new agencies, the language would ham-string the new organization. It would essentially gut his authority before he even got started and put control of the workforce back in the old agency structure.

Democrats on the committee revolted, and the language was withdrawn. So we will have a few hundred folks heading to the National Counter-Terrorism Center and the National Counter-Proliferation Center .

It was a seemingly small thing, that little paragraph contained in a thick bill, but it represents a battle that is not over. There is tension and anger in the House, which did not like the 9/11 Commission, and did not like the intelligence reorganization that followed.

The whispers in the corridor were that Hoekstra was doing a favor for Duncan Hunter, the chair of the Armed Services Committee, who had tried the same thing a few weeks ago.

John Negroponte’s people beat that one back, but the reappearance of the provision in another committee means the DNI has some powerful enemies, who will bear watching. I had hoped we might spend more.

I struggled in traffic across the 14th Street bridge, northbound. It is as bad in the evening as it is in the morning. Drivers were confused, and the heat caused more than one vehicle to blow radiator hoses. The steam hung in the air, enveloping windshields.

The exit to RFK Stadium peels off from the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, and suddenly I found myself driving alone into the long parking lot that embraces it under the bluff along the muddy banks of the Anacostia.

My son and some college pals had staked out a likely place, and I backed up the little truck next to a gigantic black Dodge 2500, perched on humongous tires, blasting XM Satellite radio. The guys were all just graduated, starting their way into the world. A couple civil engineers, a financial analyst, a new bureaucrat.

They drank beer with an exuberance that was a positive tonic. It was good to bath in the glow of the setting sun, and in the power of their youth and optimism.

Inside the stadium, Nationals pitcher Esteban Loaiza struggled through a soggy first inning in which he game up two runs on a dramatic home-run shot to right field. I was prepared to be disappointed, but the Nats rallied and we shouted and cheered.

I left in the fifth inning with the home team ahead to stay. Work calls early in the morning, and I thought the young men could probably entertain themselves without me.

Traffic was light in the moist darkness as I motored back across town, and I was at Big Pink in ten minutes. Funny how the traffic distorts life here.

I walked back into the efficiency and put down the cooler. I turned on the tube and found ESPN. In game three of the women’s NCAA championship, freshman Samantha Findlay hit a three-run homer in the 10th inning to give Michigan a 4-1 win over UCLA. It must have been exciting. First women’s softball victory to a team from east of the Mississippi .

One of my son’s pals looked at me owlishly at the game. “Two championships this year for Michigan , if the women win tonight,” he said. “ Field Hockey and Softball .” He drained his beer in silent disdain.

But I think a championship is just that, and will look as good as any other when sewed in gold onto a blue felt banner.

I yawned and started to shut down everything but the fan and the air conditioning. It had been a good day, regardless of what was happening on the Hill. Maybe the young men and women can fix this when they take over the year-round governing thing.

I doubt it, but there is always the possibility. 

Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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