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Leave Washington Alone!

DC is unfair target of attacks, 'good place in which to live'

By Wesley Oliver, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 5, 2008 1:58 PM CDT

(Newser) – Politicians can make a career out of promising to “change,” “clean up,” “reform,” and “shake up” Washington. And while the District may not completely be a shining city on a hill, it’s doing just fine, thank you, Leonard Downie writes in a tribute to the nation’s oft-slandered capital. “It particularly irks me when candidates for president rail against my adopted hometown,” Downie notes in the Washington Post.

Businessmen aren’t much better, now waiting for “Washington to bail them out after long sneering at how government works here.” And it often does work, Downie writes, defending maligned bureaucrats who put country above self. And when it doesn't? “The dirty secret is that Washington usually works the way most Americans want it to work, even though they don't want to acknowledge it.”

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Former GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was one of many politicians who railed against Washington to win office. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

"Washington is still the place for Americans to come, individually or in demonstrations of thousands, to speak, assemble and petition the government for causes great and small," Leonard Downie writes. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

"The real Washington is a good place in which to live, despite the snarled traffic and a jumble of political jurisdictions," Leonard Downie says. (Shutter Stock)

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Little is likely to be fixed or reformed by empty rhetoric that only bashes Washington. - Leonard Downie

The crisis in the financial markets is largely the creation of the private sector, which has left it to Washington to clean up. - Leonard Downie

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Leave Washington Alone!