America acknowledged the greatness of Confucius through a trio of ancient lawgivers—Moses flanked by Confucius to his right and Solon on his left—on the monument to “Justice, the Guardian of Liberty” displayed on the eastern pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C.

Before the nineteen-seventies, most Republicans in Washington accepted the institutions of the welfare state, and most Democrats agreed with the logic of the Cold War. Despite the passions over various issues, government functioned pretty well. Legislators routinely crossed party lines when they voted, and when they drank; filibusters in the Senate were reserved for the biggest bills; think tanks produced independent research, not partisan talking points. The 'D.' or 'R.' after a politician's name did not tell you what he thought about everything, or everything you thought about him.

Snowmageddon.Dirty glacial clouds hammered the city's anvil. On the District of Columbia’s northwestern edge, gusts of snow rolled across the Park Road Bridge like volcanic ash.

Watching the towers fall in New York, with civilians incinerated on the planes and in the buildings, I felt something that I couldn’t analyze at first and didn't fully grasp (partly because I was far from my family in Washington, who had a very grueling day) until the day itself was nearly over. I am only slightly embarrassed to tell you that this was a feeling of exhilaration. Here we are then, I was thinking, in a war to the finish between everything I love and everything I hate. Fine. We will win and they will lose. A pity that we let them pick the time and place of the challenge, but we can and we will make up for that.

I know where a lot of them [the elite or elitists].

Bad as political fiction can be, there is always a politician prepared to make it look artistic by comparison.

In poor countries, officials receive explicit bribes; in D.C. They get the sophisticated, implicit, unspoken promise to work for large corporations.

Excerpt from page 3 of 'Wicked Washington'Shelly Williams, the main character, speaking about her life:And close and dangerous calls were almost my last name. Yet I felt as comfortable among the street hustlers, junkies, thieves, and criminals of D.C. As I did dining with mywhite-collar, college-pedigreed friends over filet mignon, Maine lobster, and strawberry cheesecake at LaMermaidSeafood Restaurant.

Most of everything is very little of not very much at all.

Washingtonians love the 'So-and-so is spinning in his grave' cliché. Someone is always speculating about how some great dead American would be scandalized over some crime against How It Used to Be. The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated).