"You'll Always Have Lunch in This Town Again"

There are some books that are downright painful to peruse, books you feel like you should just stop reading at one point, because to keep going on is a bit too much. But, like watching the proverbial train wreck, no matter what you might wish, you simply cannot look away. While the subtitle of the book is "Two Parties and a Funeral--plus plenty of valet parking!-in America's Gilded Capital," it might well be subtitled "It's Even Worse Than You Thought." Leibovich's take-down of Washington D.C.'s political culture would be hard-pressed to be more dispiriting if it tried to be. In spite of Leibovich's humor, even a cynic like myself was even more jaded after reading this book. Truly, no one who garners a mention in the work comes off looking good, from Harry Reid and Barack Obama to Tim Russert and David Gregory. 

"This Town," as it is sometimes referred to with a mixture of admiration and disgust, has always been a haven for the power-seeking, those with a love of celebrity and politics. But in Leibovich's account it seems worse than it has historically been. The rise of a super-lobbying class, the revolving door between lobbying and politics, and the journalists of the city, all mingle to create a toxic place disdained by outsiders and adored by those within the system. We see a political class intent on "monetizing" their time in government, leaving positions of power to take high-paying positions in various sorts of lobbying jobs. There are those who are unapologetic about this, even proud, from former politician Trent Lott (shamelessly leaving office before a new law would have forced politicians to wait two years before they lobby) and the Podestas (defiantly wearing a scarlet letter "L" at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, standing proud of their work amidst the anti-lobbying culture of the Obama campaign). Even those most adamant that this is a shame and a scandal themselves become susceptible to it. Though he denied categorically that he would take a lobbying job, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd wound up as head of the lobbying firm for the motion picture industry. 

We read in This Town about the usual hangers-on, those whose lives and livelihoods revolve around the political culture, from super-lawyer Bob Barnett (don't call him a lobbyist) to Tammy Haddad, giver of super-parties in a town saturated with them. We see those who've translated even the briefest of times in office to decades of lobbying and commenting, the sad has-beens who linger around the capital as they slowly fade from public view, replaced by the fresh and up-and-coming new class of politicos. Even the politicians sent packing by their constituents often end up better off than before, thus the idea that once in Washington "You'll always have lunch in this town again." There are the journalists of D.C. who delight in their connections and friendships with important people, priding these connections and "access" to the powerful over true journalism in a place where conflicts of interest are the norm. It's a journalistic culture where the supposed watchdogs of our republic have become complacent lapdogs instead. This Town presents a culture detached from the rest of the nation's reality, a culture that looks delightedly inward at all times, celebrating their own success and grandeur no matter the circumstances beyond, a culture that, thanks in no small part to the lobbying industry, barely noticed that there was a recession.

If there can be said to be any narrative to this collection of stories and anecdotes, it's the rise of the anti-lobbyist, anti-Washington Obama Administration and their gradual descent into being just another part of the "This Town" establishment. Coming in with high ideals and an attitude that they were the answer to the town's culture, by the time the book concludes, just after the president's second inauguration, Administration officials went through the same motions as everyone else. While pledging to stop the revolving door between government and lobbying, even the ideological purists of Obama's first term found it difficult to resist the allure of the money and fame to be had, gradually succumbing so that, while in the beginning a lobbyist joining the Administration was met with shock and dismay, by the end countless Administration officials passing through that revolving door elicited barely a yawn of disinterest. 

While This Town was an interesting and well-written treatment of the topic, I don't recommend it highly. For those who already take a dim view of the capital, the work only serves to reinforce that view, to deepen the cynicism about our political elites. One feels upon finishing the book that if even the Obama Administration couldn't effect meaningful change there that the situation is far more hopeless than we might think. And now, off to find something to read that isn't quite so depressing.