America really loathes Washington right now, and that’s preposterous: Our Town has done nothing wrong.Washington is a place where hundreds of children couldn’t play soccer this past weekend; where cafeteria workers, janitors and secretaries aren’t getting paid for who knows how long; where Metro trains and buses run empty; where shoe shine guys sit idle; and where Girl Scout troops had to cancel annual camping trips.

The people of Washington didn’t want this and aren’t to blame for it either. All the crazy that led to this absurd impasse that prompted the Senate’s chaplain to pray last week, “Save us from the madness”? That’s been imported here from the rest of the country. America, you sent these guys here. They represent plenty of you, none of us. That imported brand of cuckoo is what’s causing this government shutdown.Consider that the next time you find yourself slamming Washington as a political cesspool. Or as the New York Daily News put it in its memorable “House of Turds” front page last week, “D.C. cess-pols shut down government.”
The problem with that funny headline: These pols aren’t from D.C.
. . . You, America, send us people like Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.), a former homeless man with a drug charge under his belt who had campaign bumper stickers urging the arming of fetuses: “If Babies Had Guns, They Wouldn’t Be Aborted!”. .