The End Approaches

Tomorrow is the last day of my internship. Hard to believe, but true. My family is coming out tomorrow, and we're going to have our vacation out in DC. I'll miss the office and the friends I made here, but I'm ready to get on with the summer, too.

As I write this, I have been awake for eighteen hours, since 4 AM. Even so, I'm not tired. In fact, I'm a little giddy. And the reason is, I woke up at 4 AM this morning to go running with Senator Grassley.

No lie. The senator runs three miles every morning at 5:15. (He's 74). Abhay asked him if he could come along, and eventually Adam (from Cherokee) and Tom (from England) got in on the deal. After Grassley wrapped up his live call-in cable show last night, one of his staffers asked me I wanted to go too. Heck yes!

So we got up super-early, took a taxi to his house in Arlington, and went running. It was a beautiful morning (but a really, really hot and humid day), and he led the way. Tom tried to get some action shots of us running, but I'm not sure how they turned out. I'll post them here when he gets them done. Afterwards, Mrs. Grassley made us oatmeal, and the six of us ate breakfast together. If we didn't know who he was, you never would have guessed he was a U.S. Senator. He is just a, friendly, regular guy. Whom I hero-worship just a little.

So where did I leave off last time? Oh yeah, the McClellan hearing.

We went fifty minutes early to try to get into the hearing, but that wasn't early enough, and we got put in an overflow room to watch the hearing on a big TV screen. And if you didn't follow the news reports about the hearing, it didn't amount to much.

The highlight? Rep. Conyers, the Democratic chairman of the committee, gave an opening statement about why he thought the topic was important. Rep. Smith, the ranking Republican, gave an opening statement about why he thought the topic was unimportant. He started off by saying, "Welcome, everyone, to the Judiciary Committee's first Book of the Month Club meeting.
Today, it's Scott McClellan's "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception." I propose that next time we consider Ann Coulter's book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)." Smith proceeded to rip into McClellan's credibility and question his motives.

After he finished his statement, McClellan's lawyer stood up - to object! Like it was a courtroom! It took about thirty seconds for the committee members to figure out what the moron was doing. At last, Conyers said, "Counsel cannot object to the committee proceedings." Duh.

Following that, the hearing basically consisted of question-and-answer exchanges like these:

CONYERS: You spoke very frequently with the president and the vice president. Do you think either or both of them knew about the leak and had any role in causing the leak to happen, or knew that Mr. Libby was involved in the leak when they helped get you to falsely vouch for him?

MCCLELLAN: I do not think the president in any way had knowledge about it, based on my conversations with him back at that time, when he said that Karl Rove had not been involved in it and told him something to that effect. In terms of the vice president, I do not know.

SMITH: You write that you witnessed Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby meet in Mr. Rove's office behind closed doors, and you infer that they were conspiring to mislead the grand jury looking to the Valerie Plame investigation at the time. Did you hear any portion of their conversation?
MCCLELLAN: No, sir, I did not.

NADLER: Do you have any knowledge of whether prior to or after the leak of Ms. Wilson's covert identity either the vice president or the president declassified her covert status in order to have it leaked to reporters?
MCCLELLAN: No, I do not.

NADLER: And do you have any information on the role, if any, played by the vice president in the leaking of Ms. Wilson's identity?
MCCLELLAN: No. I have no direct knowledge of that.

NADLER: And do you have any idea why Vice President Cheney may have knowingly, indirectly or directly, instructed you to publicly exonerate Mr. Libby?
MCCLELLAN: No, sir, I do not. I was not a party to that conversation with the president.

NADLER: Do you have any idea whether when he gave that instruction that he knew at that time that Mr. Libby had, in fact, been involved in the leak?
MCCLELLAN: No, I do not know that.

He doesn't know much. I think it slowly dawned on everyone on the committee that this guy was the press secretary, the mouthpiece. Eventually, they had to go vote on something, and we weren't about to wait two hours for them to reconvene, so we went back to work.

On Saturday, Tom and I went to the Holocaust Museum. It was stunning, and really, really depressing. At the beginning, they shove us all into this really gloomy elevator and take us to the third story, and you hear the recorded voice of an American soldier talking about how they had never seen anything like this. Then the elevator doors opened, and they had a bunch of TV screens showing the original footage of the camps the Allies took when they were liberated. It was really horrifying.

The rest of the museum takes you on a journey through Hitler's rise to power, the gradual crackdown on the Jews, the start of the war, and finally, the camps. They have replicas of the barracks and trains, and a huge room full of the actual shoes of the victims. I felt kind of numb to it all, but it was worth it.

The museum has a memorial room that you can look into, but not go into. It had some candles burning, and it was decorated with verses from the Old Testament, the ones about teaching your children to remember.

I would have taken pictures in the museum, but it wasn't allowed. Here's the outside, though:

This is a street nearby the musem. Raoul Wallenberg was a diplomat in Hungary who helped save thousands of Jews. He disappeared after the Soviets took over.



On Monday, we helped some of Grassley's staff put on a relief fundraiser for the Iowa floods. It was held on the roof of a really nice ten-story office building on Constitution Ave. From the top, we had a great view of the Capitol and some other places. (Katie and Abhay took those pictures, still waiting for them.)

Here's the really rich part: we got rained out.

So everyone crowded into the ground floor lobby, and the building staff were all freaking out about all the people, and it was really chaotic for a while. But eventually, we got to go back onto the roof. All of the congressmen from Iowa except Boswell came. So did the Secretary of Agriculture, Ed Schafer, whose hand I shook before knowing who it was. So it was a pretty good time.

Tonight after work, Abhay and I went to the Middle East Institute to hear Richard Clarke speak. (Richard Clarke was the counterterrorism czar under Clinton and Bush until 2004ish, when he resigned and became one of Bush's biggest critics.) The speech was held in the sweltering heat in a garden at the institute. Hot, but not very many people; we were really close to him. Both Abhay and I asked questions, and I got the whole thing on my flip video camera. (Though I haven't watched it yet and can't guarantee the quality.) We thought that was pretty cool.

When I asked my question, I told him my name and said that I was an intern with Senator Grassley. He said, "Give my regards to Senator Grassley. I have a lot of respect for him."

Darn straight you do.

Anyway, when he answered the first question, he mentioned that the next president needs to, quote, "get us the hell out of Iraq." My question was, what's the best way to do that? He said, remove one brigade every month until you're completely out. I'm more than a little skeptical that that would be in the best interests of either us or the Iraqis, but it was still cool that I got to talk to him.




Also: NBC's Washington studios are on the street our shuttle bus takes to the Metro every day. The sign for the studios had been turned into an impromptu memorial for Tim Russert. I took these while walking there last weekend.

Thanks for reading everybody. I really appreciate you all keeping in touch. Can't wait to see you all again!

The Newseum, the sculpture garden, and a chance encounter

Today, one of the press staffers and I took a German exchange student to meet Grassley right outside the Senate floor. It was a pretty standard meet-and-greet. They talked, I took pictures of varying quality. After that, the Senator left for a meeting, and we took the student back to the office to set up a tour. The front area of the office has a bunch of chairs for people to sit in while waiting to meet with Grassley. I walked past the chairs, and briefly glanced at the people sitting in them before heading through the door towards the press office.

Once the door closed behind me, my mind caught up with my glance, and I thought,

Did I just walk past Professor Jansen?

I turned around, went back out the door, and sure enough: Abby Jansen, a social work prof from Dordt was sitting there - as was Laura MacMillan.

She was just as shocked to see me, I think. I guess we never talked about our summer plans at school. She didn't know I was interning with Grassley, and I didn't know she was lobbying with Bread for the World - which is why she and Professor Jansen were visiting Grassley. I couldn't talk very long, but it was super-cool to see them, and I hope their lobbying went well.

On Sunday, I went to the Newseum with Abhay and his girlfriend (who was in town for the weekend.) It was the same day as a gay pride festival, which was conveniently held on the road in front of the Newseum. And Abhay and his lady-friend were conveniently late.

Long story short: I got hit on. Short story long: I don't want to talk about it, OK?

But the Newseum was really cool. (See pictures below.) The coolest thing there was a section of the actual Berlin Wall. It gave me goosebumps, thinking about the people who built it, the people who climbed over it, and the people who knocked it down. If someone had told Reagan when he gave his "Tear down this wall!" speech that within twenty years, the wall would be on display in an American museum, would he have believed them? The liberation of Eastern Europe has got to be one of history's most amazing events.

View from the Newseum balcony, overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue:


National Gallery of Art (West Wing):




National Gallery of Art:

Capitol Building, plus gay pride:

Smithsonian Castle:

Inside:

The west side of the Berlin Wall:

The east side of the Berlin Wall (painted white by the communists to make it easier to spot escapees):




A Berlin Wall guard tower:



A barricade:

A sign from the post-WWII occupation:

A statue of V. I. Lenin, decapitated after the Cold War:

Part of the World Trade Center:





Rubble from the Pentagon:

Actual September 12 headline of the San Francisco Examiner:

A VERY old license plate:

Another picture from the same exhibit. We should do this at Dordt sometime:


Post-Apartheid South African voting box:





Daniel Pearl's laptop (Pearl was beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002):

Now that's what I'm talking about:

Voting ballot from the 2000 Florida election:

And, at the sculpture garden. You artsy Dordt people (you know who you are) should like this.

My favorite:




Really?

"The Thinker":

Playing chess:

Coming up: Scott McClellan's House Intelligence Committee testimony on Friday. Abhay and I are going. Should be interesting, to say the least.

Friday the 13th and other adventures

Hey everybody. I figured it was time for an update, so here's what's been going on.

The time is going by really fast. I only have two weeks, and one weekend left. I'm excited to see my family again (they're coming up here to get me, and then we'll have our vacation here), but I think I'll miss the friends I've made here.


On Thursday, I got sorta-kinda interrogated by Capitol Police for the first time. Grassley was speaking to the Greater Des Moines Partnership at the Hyatt hotel near the Capitol. We walked there from Hart Office Building, Grassley spoke, and then he took off. He was going to meet some constituents at a lunch for one of the Senate committees he's on, so we were going to meet him there and take pictures. The staffer I was with had to run back to the office to check on something, so I went there by myself with the camera, knowing only the room number. I found the room, walked past two huge security guards, nodded, and walked in. There were a couple of caterers, eleven senators having lunch at a table (including the Republican party whip), and me holding a camera. Right. Ok, then. I decided to stand against the wall and look inconspicuous until the constituents showed up. One of the security guards poked his head around the door, looked at me, then went back out. A second later, both guards poked their heads around, and one of them motioned for me to follow them. Great.


"Who are you with?"
"Senator Grassley."
"Why are you here?"
"I'm just an intern, I'm waiting for one of his staffers." Please don't hurt me.
"Did we just see you at the Hyatt?"
"Yes." I'm not stalking Senator Kyl, I swear.
"Do you have your ID?"
"Yes." So glad this didn't happen on the day I forgot it.
"OK, just wanted to be sure. Thanks."
"N-n-no problem."


So that was exciting.


Senator Grassley flew back to Iowa that afternoon to see the flood damage with Harkin, and I got to go out to eat with Tim Moerman (from my church), and the rest of the Ankeny and Polk City councils, who were there for the Partnership conference. They were a great group, and we had a lot of fun.


Yesterday, Friday the 13th, definitely lived up to its reputation. We (the interns) had two events to go to. One was a breakfast for the Greater Des Moines Partnership at the Hyatt again. The other was a World Food Prize ceremony at the State Department. We got up early to take the Metro to the breakfast, but there was a fire in one of the main stations, so we had to get off and take a cab there. After the breakfast, we got on the Metro again to go to the State Department, and the fire reignited. So we had to get out and walk to a separate Metro line to get there. Once we got back to the office, we learned that Tim Russert had died - which was weird, shocking and very sad. It's awfully strange to think that we'll never see him on TV ever again. And then, to cap it all off, I went with a friend to see The Happening at a local theater, but they wouldn't let me in - because it was an R-rated movie, and I wasn't 21, and they serve beer in their R-rated movies. BEER! At a movie theater! Can you think of anything more absurd? Because I can't. I was rather disgusted.

That said, the breakfast and the ceremony were both very cool. It was nice to get out of the office for the day. The speaker at the breakfast was the CBS reporter who broke the Hillary Clinton Bosnia sniper story, but her normal beat is exposing wasteful congressional earmarks. Since she was speaking to a room that contained quite a few Democrats and earmark seekers, it was more than a little awkward, which I naturally enjoyed.

But the World Food Prize was fantastic. I followed the advice of one of Mr. Moermon's friends and brought a camera, so here's another round of photos.

Outside the State Department:

In the foyer:
The courtyard:
This room is full of paintings, artwork and furniture from the Revolutionary War-era:

This is the desk that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence on:

The original Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War, along with the original desk it was signed on:

The original Spirit of '76 painting.

The Lincoln Memorial, seen from the State Dep. balcony. (The thing they're building in front of it is the Institute of Peace):



The interns! From left to right: Adam, Abhay (my roommate), me, Tom (the British guy), Katie, Ted and Liz:
Ted and Tom have a great Dubya and Tony Blair routine:

People wait to find out who will win this year's World Food Prize (Bob Dole and George McGovern - but they weren't there. They'll actually RECEIVE the prize in Des Moines in October).

Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte speaks about the world food crisis:

I got to meet Justin Cremer, one of my former fellow Des Moines Register bloggers who works for the World Food Prize.

We did a little bit of role-playing on the way back to the office.

Abhay and I confer on critical policy issues:

President Nadipuram and Prime Minister Davenport greet their citizens:

Dubya and Tony debating where to invade next:

Stay dry everyone! See you in a few weeks.