Editorials and Opinions

Gary Tischler • July 26, 2011

It’s springtime, and in this city, in our neighborhoods, we could be living almost anywhere, with slight differences of details because we lead daily lives as prosaic as a suburbanite filling his SUV with soccer gear. You can close your eyes and the world is not that much with you, breathing down your neck with alarming tales of celebrity or war.

But in Washington, that’s hardly ever true. In the most beautiful weekend of the year so far, the SunTrust National Marathon, thousands strong, came through our neighborhood and others, the water bearers lined up along Columbia Road as the early batch, loped through. It transformed, if not transfixed, where we lived — streets closed off, drivers grinding through the maze of Lanier Place, Ontario Road or Adams Mill Road, trying to get out to the grocery stores.

“My daughter’s in this,” a neighbor said, rushing to get to the race. “Gotta get out there.”
Elsewhere, at Lafayette Park, thousands of anti-war(s) protesters gathered, protesting not only the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Israel’s settlements. As of old, they brought masks, megaphones, coffins, the regalia and passion of the young.

They may have picked the wrong time to gather this way in front of the White House or in the city. For one thing, there was the spring fever burning bright, infectious. For another, the transient politician among us, and the occupants of the White House were pre-occupied with other things.

This was the weekend, when, in contradictory fashion, the big health care reform bill, almost in a flash, spurred by encouraging CBO statistics about its cost and by the impassioned pleadings of the president himself, suddenly was about to come to a vote.

Which meant, of course, that the Tea Party folks were in town. This may have meant little to people in Georgetown, or in my neck of the woods off Rock Creek Park in Adams Morgan, but they made their presence felt on Capitol Hill.

On the Hill, history and history-making kissed us squarely on the mouth. It was pure theater, mixed in with the regular theater, the president giving one of his classic campaign style speeches — “Don’t do it for me, don’t do it for the Democratic Party, do it for the American people” — while the GOP stalwarts, including the sour-faced House minority leader Jim Boehner, repeated his mantra: the American people don’t want this bill. Outside, the Tea party folks accused Democrats of socialism, communism, big-ism, take-over-ism, and so on, with a fury rarely seen in this city since the last Cowboys-Redskins game at RFK stadium.

Some members of the Tea Party, it should be noted, also exposed themselves, not in the usual way, but with racial and homophobic slurs directed against black and gay Democrat legislators on Saturday and again on Sunday. Mr. Boehner, when pressed, called this reprehensible, although somehow managed to say it in a way that suggested the American people were so angry about health care that they forgot themselves.

What was certain was that if the GOP party itself had previously tried to keep a thin distance between itself and the Tea Party, it disappeared entirely on Sunday. Faced with a vote that would pass a historic bill they had fought so bitterly, GOP legislators moved out to a balcony and egged the crowd on with “Kill the Bill” signs.

Eventually, history was made: the bill, by a 219-212 margin, had passed.

We were asleep by then. Many of us had also missed the sunny Sunday afternoon on the mall where still another group in the thousands had gathered to ask for immigration justice.

The very fact that history looms over our shoulders daily in this city is what makes the things we do from day to day so precious here, because we hear the hollering of the Tea Party, the banging of the drums of the protesters, the epic words of political opposites. We have our own little political struggles to overcome: the murmurs of discontent about our mayor pop up in the neighborhoods, there and there. Overnight, history sweeps through our sleep, through our locked doors.

We wake up, like everyone else and pick up the morning paper on the third day of spring, awaiting rain.

the Georgetowner Editorial Board •

Well, city council Chairman Vincent Gray has gone and done it.

After months of prodding and speculation in the media and among political types in the District, Gray has decided to take on incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty and run against him.

He made his announcement at a spirited rally where the key rhetorical elements were “one city” and “we can do better,” which got the people in attendance at Reeves Municipal Center going, but didn’t give too many clues on substance or policy difference that Gray might have with the mayor.

Still, the announcement accomplished at least two things: it ended speculation about Gray and transferred it to speculation about who was going to run for Gray’s chairman position.

The one certain thing is that Gray will not be chairman next year, and that’s the big risk in his decision: that he could become Linda Cropp, the sitting council chair four years ago who decided to run for mayor and got soundly trounced by Fenty, managing to lose every precinct and ward in the city. Now that he’s opted to run against Fenty, Gray cannot run for re-election as council chair, an election he was a sure bet to have won. He could be a man without a job if he fails to unseat the sitting mayor.

Gray is obviously optimistic about his chances. On the surface, his is in the very least a serious candidacy, although the probabilities for success remain very, very iffy. Gray may have been encouraged by a recent poll that showed a decided unhappiness among voters with Fenty, but it was a poll from which you could extract mixed meanings.

Many district voters and residents, many of them in the poorer and majority black areas of the city such as Ward 8, 7, 6, 5 and 4 (Fenty’s own ward), are not happy with the way Fenty has governed, even if quite a few others praise his action-fueled ways, citing favorable homicide and crime stats, a major school takeover and reform effort that’s beginning to show favorable results in some areas and general quality of life improvements. It was a poll that seemed to say “we like some of what you’ve done, but we don’t like how you did it.” Which is to say that Fenty was perceived as distant, somewhat arrogant, a “does not play well with others” (especially the city council) kind of leader, often high-handed, secretive and single-minded. A poll also showed that in a one-on-one race against Fenty, Gray would narrowly win.

Yet these objections, while heated, also seem somewhat ephemeral — they’re not the sort of thing you on which you can place a big political bet. More troublesome may be the results of an investigation into Fenty’s bypassing the council in awarding contracts on parks and recreation projects. And just this week, the anger of residents where four people were killed in mass shootings was high after Fenty — rumored to be vacationing in Jamaica — failed to show up at the site. To be fair, the mayor’s presence at scenes of tragedy and trouble has been consistently high in the past.

Then there’s the question of how legislation will fare on the council when a number of its members are engaged in running for office, and that would be especially in the case of Gray. It’s budget time, and Fenty last week presented his budget for fiscal year 2011 to the council and to the public, a budget fraught with potential controversy, given its unsightly $500 million-plus deficit. At the meeting with the council, Fenty greeted Gray with a hug, the first time the two men apparently had seen each other or talked in months.

Fenty’s relationship with the city council — especially Gray — has deteriorated drastically, beginning with the choice of Michelle Rhee as public schools chancellor, the selection of which the Washington Post knew about before Gray was informed. Rhee’s own drastic reform efforts, which include high doses of national publicity, the mass firing of teachers and stalled contract talks with the teacher’s union, seemed to mimic Fenty’s style.

Such treatment obviously rankled Gray, especially after he supported Fenty in his school takeover effort.

But Fenty is also a tough, high-energy campaigner with a big war chest of nearly $4 million. This late in the game, that’s a lot to catch up with, although Gray is rumored to be trolling for support with the Cafritz family and folks like Judith Terra, a former Fenty supporter.

Then there’s Don Peebles, the bucks-rich developer who may yet run, which might distract the focus of voters, if not the contributors.

Gray — now dubbed Vince Gray on his campaign website — is a careful sort who likes building consensus. Fenty, at least if the polls are correct, is seen as someone who likes to act and make decisions and not look back or apologize.

Gray’s decision sparked a scramble among candidates looking at his council chairman seat in an increasingly volatile city council. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, the council’s longest sitting member, has already unequivocally said he will run. Solid rumors have it that Kwame Brown, the appealing and popular at-large member will also run, and there are speculations about Phil Mendelson, another veteran at-large member who faces a re-election challenge, is also considering a bid for the seat.

That speaks to a certain instability on the new council, which recently celebrated its 35th anniversary under Home Rule. Six council members are up for re-election this year, many of them first timers. That makes this year’s budget deliberations a possible arena for political combat.

In this atmosphere, and with this late start, what are the odds on Gray’s run? It remains a long shot, but there are some things he can (and some that he must) do to give himself the best chance. The most difficult might be catching up in the financing sweepstakes. He (and Fenty) must also be careful to not let their differences create a have-and-have-not political climate. But Gray has to do more than complain about Fenty’s style. Fenty and Gray represent two different political generations in Washington, something that can favor Gray, who can draw support from folks used to being politically active. But he has to, at some point, make policy distinctions between himself and Fenty. It’s one thing to be prickly about Rhee and her methods, or Fenty and his methods. He’s got to show how a Gray administration would be different in substance, not just style. Both Vincent and Vince have to show up at the candidate forums which are a hallmark of D.C.’s election campaigns.

Gary Tischler •

On Easter weekend in Washington, the president became an avatar of spring, a burdened man who still led the way, like a pied piper, to greet spring with joy and a burst of activity.

In Washington, the tourists, too, are our avatars of spring, dropping out of the sky as the cherry blossoms did their magnificent thing.

But President Barack Obama showed the way, taking himself and his family not across the traditional way to St. John’s Episcopal in Lafayette Park but out to Southeast and Allen Chapel AME Church for an Easter service.

The visitation at a church, very much like the one he used to attend in Chicago, moved the congregation, the ministers, deacons, women, men and children there to the core. This is an area of the city where shootings are a regular part of the daily diet of woes that includes astronomic unemployment and a feeling that political leaders, from the mayor on down, had forgotten them.

But the president had not, and by attending and interacting, although not speaking, he brought with him — besides the circus of Secret Service and gawkers that go with him everywhere — some measure of renewed hope and energy. “This is a monumental moment for us as a community,” Church pastor Rev. Michael E. Bell Sr., said, as reported in the Washington Post. Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry, a frequent visitor, and Mayor Adrian Fenty, not so much, sat quietly.

The president, like us, like the tulips, like the tourists, embraced spring, and dove into its duties with gusto — jump-starting egg hunt races at the White House were thousands of guests brightened up the lawn and the day afternoon on Sunday. No doubt, he forgave the children for getting a bigger kick out of teen rock star Justin Bieber, who sang and performed.

Later, he headed to the Nationals Ball Park, donned a red suit, and threw out the first pitch, a lob to the left, proving again that basketball was his game. On YouTube, you could hear a lone boo somewhere, but this was no tea party. This was baseball, the season initiated by the president, and the fans, who bring hope and begin their spring-summer-early-fall-to-October daily ritual of perusing the box scores as if they contained the baseball equivalent of Bible verses.

And that was spring in Washington, where the president lives by our leave, as do we. The Nationals, by the way, lost the opener 11-1, which does in no way diminish the fact that many, many games remain.

Gary Tischler •

The real deal begins Wednesday.

Ever since DC City Council Chairman Vince Gray scored a solid and surprising win over incumbent mayor Adrian Fenty back in September, there was a certain air of calm before the storm throughout the city, as voters waited in place for the validating election that occurred this week.

While everywhere else across the country, Democrats are all but shaking in their collective boots awaiting an impending wave of national discontent that seemed likely to take away their control of the House of Representatives, here in Washington, Democrat stalwarts can rest assured that they’ll stay in control of the city, in as much as the city has control over itself.

It’s pretty safe to say that what the Democratic primary brought about in September will pretty much stand as the election result. So, we feel safe in saying that, even though we went to press before the election results were tabulated, Gray will officially become the city’s sixth mayor, Kwame Brown will become it’s City Council Chairman, and the makeup of the city council, sans Brown’s seat, will stand pat.

The bigger question becomes what happens next, and what will be the major issue confronting the new mayor, chairman and council?

Hint: It’s probably not school reform.

The big cloud looming over Washington and its governing types is the huge ($175 million and counting) budget deficit, which, if it isn’t solved could lead the city back into the control of a control board. The city is required by law to present a balanced to congress or see the return of the bad old days of control board authority.

Nobody’s making predictions, but Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, who was the only council member to vote against the last budget and who’s something of an expert on city finances, said that tough decisions are ahead, and to him, that means severe cuts up and down the line.

Others on the council, Michael Brown and Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells among them, have talked about raising taxes. This would certainly fly in the face of all the mighty political winds blowing across the country, where tax cuts for anybody making a salary, however meager or large, are being proposed and will be the focus of major debates once the electoral blood-letting is done.

Not in DC. Presumptive mayor Gray hasn’t chimed in on that, although at the last of the town hall meetings held in all of the city’s eight wards, he did opine that he himself wouldn’t mind paying additional taxes. Which is not to say that everyone else in the city might not.

Gray has spent much of his time on the town hall meetings throughout the city, drawing largely favorable reviews from those attending. Ever since the resignation of DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the ensuing commentary, things have been quiet. Too quiet.

As Gray himself acknowledges, people throughout the city haven’t yet gotten a handle on what a Gray administration might look and feel like, and how it would differ from the previous tenant. It’s probably fair to say that it will be, as Gray promised, more inclusionary, less breathlessly active, more thoughtful, and more cognizant of the entire city. The city remains divided, as Gray was the first to truly see, and the post-election doings haven’t done much to bridge that gap. The town hall meetings were meant to give people an idea of who Gray was, and to begin healing that divide.

While there were initial rumblings in the media and in different parts of the city in the aftermath of victory (or defeat, depending upon where you lived and who you supported), the grumblings so far haven’t amounted to much. Except for the write-in effort for Fenty which will allow people to vote for Fenty as a write-in-candidate.

In typically contemporary fashion, the effort had its start on Facebook and launched to raise funds and support for Fenty. Never mind that Fenty lost by a clear10 percentage point and that nobody is questioning the result. It’s an effort by folks who fear and think that Gray, whom they otherwise like, is somehow going to derail school reform in the district which, depending on where you sat, was a big success under Fenty and Rhee.

Fenty disavowed any support for the effort, said he was supporting Gray repeatedly, and assured that he was going to vote for him. Although he stopped short of sharply discouraging the effort. “I can’t tell people what they can or can’t do,” he said.

The effort, while perfectly legal, only exasperates the divisions existing in the city. It is a peculiarly undemocratic approach that says: We won’t accept the election results that we don’t like and we’re going to try and change them.

They’re not the only ones who have some of that attitude. Consider the Washington Post. The media always plays a heavy role in politics. It’s the nature of the best that we are. But the Post holds a particularly influential position on matters of local importance in this city.

During the course of this campaign, the Post looked almost schizophrenic
in its coverage, with the editorial page supporting team Fenty-Rhee consistently, strongly, and with all guns firing. On the other hand, the reporting has been, for the most part, consistently excellent and even-handed. There is no small amount of irony in the fact that it was a Washington Post poll which discovered early on that there was a growing groundswell of discontent around Fenty and Rhee—not against reform or policy, but against the high-handedness of their methods. That discovery was made early in January and no doubt helped a still undecided Gray jump into the fray. The fact that neither Fenty nor Rhee heeded the warning signs resulted in yet another late-election Post poll which showed the same results only more so. But by then it was probably too late.

Not that the Post has given up. This year, the Post editorial board appears to have discovered Republicans in our midst, something it hadn’t previously noticed outside of Carole Schwartz, the most unorthodox Republican that ever lived. The local GOP has avoided the mayor’s race, but has fielded candidates in the council races. Two of them managed to gain the support of the Post, in the name of political diversity. That would be David Hedgepeth, running against incumbent Democrat Mary Cheh in Ward 3, and Timothy Day in Ward 5 running against Harry Thomas Jr.

“They’ve come out of the closet,” a neighbor of mine suggested. But it’s doubtful that the Post suddenly got GOP fever, even with the ill political winds blowing out there. They chided Ms. Cheh for what they saw as her tepid support of school reform and, not coincidentally, her support of Gray during the primary election. Thomas is also a strong Gray supporter.

But still there seems to be a watch-and-wait attitude in the city. Even the announced and impending resignation of DC Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin caused barely a ripple in the media. The announcement was made via mass e-mail recently. Rubin said he would be working as a consultant through January 2.

Rubin’s departure, and a sure change in the city attorney’s office come January, along with Rhee’s departure mark three pairs of shoes that dropped. The rest await the workings of transition, a process that Gray hopes to finance through private donations, as opposition to tax funds. Speaking of taxes…we’ll that’s going to have to wait for now, too.