Leave Washington Alone!

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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