A Party at a Crossroads

Thoughts from the Ride Side
"A Party at a Crossroads"
by R.C. Blogger Christian Stockel

As the Republican Party regroups itself after the 2008 elections, there have been many voices offering their advice on how to “repair” the Republican Party and return them to political relevance. Unfortunately there are some voices that are tempting the party leadership into a direction that will only lead the party (and the conservative movement) to permanent defeat and result in the transformation of our Constitutional Republic into just another social democracy. Former Governor Christine Todd Whitman complained about “social fundamentalists” ruining the party. In her argument, she stated that the Republican party is held hostage by social conservatives that alienate the moderate majority and that future success will rely on Republicans abandoning social and moral issues and focus on economic and “practical” issues. David Frum points out that Democrats won this year because – since 1988 – they have become more economically conservative and the majority of Americans have become more socially liberal. Former Senator Hagel and Senator Bye have made their positions clear as well.

In summary, many are arguing that the Republican Party needs to become less conservative and move away from “moral” or “social” issues that alienate so many Americans. What gives? Did the Republican Party all of sudden develop schizophrenia? Were these people watching the same election I was? What happened to the party of ideas and optimism about our nation and its founding principles? It appears this party has been left by the wayside or its party leadership has become too intellectually lazy to articulate a robust conservative political argument and has decided to find the path of least resistance to relevance. Can someone channel the spirit of Reagan, Lee Atwater, and Lee Marvin and beat some sense into these people?

Listening to some of these arguments, one would think that the election of 2008 was between Barry Goldwater and LBJ and that the electorate voted for Great Society part Deux. If this assessment is accurate, I would really like someone to give me a clue on who the conservative candidate was and when did he show up in the campaign. The simple fact is Senator McCain was and is a moderate who seems slightly embarrassed to be a Republican. He ran as a moderate whose biggest selling point was that he was more apt to go against his own party than Barack Obama would is own. Senator McCain went out of his way to prove he would work with Democrats and compromise on key issues where practical. It was Senator McCain who advocated the government to buy troubled mortgages, he was a champion of the government bailout of the financial industry, and he advocated the ‘cap and trade” policy in an effort to help fight global warming. He was all over the place and had no coherent message. It seems that some in the Republican leadership want to repeat this model hoping for a different outcome. Brilliant!

Meanwhile, Barack Obama focused his campaign rhetoric on plans to give 95% of Americans a tax cut, reducing government spending, and bombing Pakistan into the stone-age if they got in our way going after Osama Bin Laden. Hmmm – who does that sound like? Granted, Obama’s approach was to camouflage his liberal background, policies, and tendencies with Reganesque rhetoric, but to a confused and exhausted electorate it worked. So in summary, the Republicans nominated a man who talked like a New Deal Democrat and the Democrats put forth a candidate that sounded like Reagan and looked “cool”. One can almost reach out and grab the irony, cut a slab out of it, and throw it on the grill with some onions and peppers.

In the end, the American voter was attracted to Obama’s moderate message that was well focused, well articulated, and well delivered. In contrast, the Republicans offered a candidate who couldn’t articulate a clear message, seemed almost apologetic to be running as a Republican, and looked like he was in a bad mood. ”. The American voter could not understand McCain’s message and what his administration would do for the country. The only spark his campaign received was the introduction of Sarah Palin and we all know how well they failed to leverage her effectively. It seems that the conservative and optimistic message still wins – unfortunately it was delivered by a radical leftist who brings with him a left-wing agenda and a party beholden to the MoveOn.org crowd. The fact this bait and switch job could have been sold so easily should alarm the party leadership because it signals that something is really wrong at RNC headquarters and their “strategy.

So where does this leave the Republican Party and conservatives? Well, in all honestly, it leaves us in a precarious position. Republicans are a minority in the House, the Senate, and are on the outside looking in at the White House. In addition, the main stream media has unashamedly aligned itself with the incoming Obama administration and promises to offer very little scrutiny of future policies and his administration in the near future. Unlike the 1964 election, we don’t have a Ronald Reagan who can articulate the foundations of a new conservative movement. We are in great danger of returning to the days of country club conservatism whose only reason for being was that they can run the government leviathan a bit more efficiently using a little less money than the Democrats. As proven in the past, that is a prescription for permanent minority status for Republicans. We might as well take tips from the Conservative party in Britain to map out our future – is John Major still available? More importantly, it robs our nation of an alternative political narrative when the federal government, under the complete control of Democrats, is rapidly preparing a European style welfare state that will bankrupt us financially and enervate us spiritually and morally.

These serious times require that we conservatives develop, articulate, and communicate a bold, clear, and strikingly conservative message. Our message has to be a stark contrast to the one being offered by the Democrats. In addition, the people who are selected to deliver this message should be able to not only state a policy, but also clearly explain how these conservative policies better meet the needs of the people and are more sustainable over the time. As conservatives, we will have to put in the time and effort to argue and explain how limited government, lower taxes, more capitalism, and more private property will address the concerns of Americans better than the “state as Santa Clause” model being offered by the Democrats. We need to expose the liberal agenda for what it is - a cynical attempt by Democrats to buy votes with government largesse to maintain their hold on power – the fate of the nation be damned. We need to do this without fear, without apology, and demand that liberals explain and justify their policy proposals. It is time to turn the tables – and do it quickly. Some will read this and say – “Hey sounds great, but it is easier said than done.” Well maybe not so hard if we Republicans decide that we want to be party of conservative ideas and translate these ideas into concrete policies.

Let’s take education policy. During the debates, Obama complained that the $9-10 billion a month spent on the war in Iraq ‘stole’ resources away from education programs. That was a huge opportunity for McCain to make a solid rhetorical point. He could have reminded Obama that the Department of Education has seen a continuous rise in its budget since its founding in 1977, that the federal government spends more per K-12 student than any other industrialized nation, and that this ever increasing budget has had no demonstrable impact on improving public education in the United States. McCain could have asked Obama to defend the money spent at the Department of Education and ask if any reasonably intelligent person thinks this relatively new agency has any impact on education in the US. McCain could have said the money spent to maintain a bureaucracy in Washington D.C. could be better spent on vouchers allowing low-income families to find schools that better serve their children. McCain could have, but he didn’t – an opportunity lost. Obama also told some real whoppers during the debates about how the excesses of capitalism caused the current mortgage crisis. McCain could have taken the opportunity to remind Obama about the role of misguided social policy (expansion of CRA), lowered FHA lending standards, and Fannie Mae’s packaging of dodgy loans as ‘guaranteed’ government backed paper to the secondary markets in causing this mess. He could have pre-empted Obama’s false narrative about our current economic crisis and clearly explained how more government intervention in the financial industry, the automobile industry, and the economy overall will only lead to more economic disasters. McCain could have also discussed how America’s military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan have gone along way towards re-establishing the credibly of American force and resolve after a decade of retreat and cowering in the face of radical Islam and terrorism. Well – we all know how that went.

What is needed now is one brave, clear voice of reason that will turn to the siren calls of moderation and capitulation and shout “Stop”! If we conservatives want to win, we need to grow a spine, a brain, and a belief in the principles and values that define conservatism. The country club Republicans need to be removed and expunged from the party. The moderates need to be shunned and excommunicated. New leaders with bold and aggressive ideas must to take hold of the party leadership. Conservatism needs to define the debate and drive the political narrative – not play on the field chosen by our opponents. Any other path will lead the party to permanent minority status and permit the slow drift of our nation towards the lazy slumber of socialism and the social and cultural sclerosis that will follow.

My fellow conservatives, can we do it?

Yes we can.

Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin

From today's Wall St. Journal by John O'Sullivan:

Being listed in fourth place for Time magazine's "Person of the Year," as Sarah Palin was for 2008, sounds a little like being awarded the Order of Purity (Fourth Class). But it testifies to something important.

Though regularly pronounced sick, dying, dead, cremated and scattered at sea, Mrs. Palin is still amazingly around. She has survived more media assassination attempts than Fidel Castro has survived real ones (Cuban official figure: 638). In her case, one particular method of assassination is especially popular -- namely, the desperate assertion that, in addition to her other handicaps, she is "no Margaret Thatcher."

Very few express this view in a calm or considered manner. Some employ profanity. Most claim to be conservative admirers of Mrs. Thatcher. Others admit they had always disliked the former British prime minister until someone compared her to "Sarracuda" -- at which point they suddenly realized Mrs. Thatcher must have been absolutely brilliant (at least by comparison).

Inevitably, Lloyd Bentsen's famous put-down of Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice-presidential debate is resurrected, such as by Paul Waugh (in the London Evening Standard) and Marie Cocco (in the Washington Post): "Newsflash! Governor, You're No Maggie Thatcher," sneered Mr. Waugh. Added Ms. Coco, "now we know Sarah Palin is no Margaret Thatcher -- and no Dan Quayle either!"

Jolly, rib-tickling stuff. But, as it happens, I know Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher is a friend of mine. And as a matter of fact, Margaret Thatcher and Sarah Palin have a great deal in common.

They are far from identical; they rose in different political systems requiring different skills. As a parliamentarian, Mrs. Thatcher needed forensic and debating skills which her training in Oxford politics and as a tax lawyer gave her. Mrs. Palin is a good speaker, but she needs to hone her debating tactics if she is to match those of the Iron Lady.

On the other hand, Mrs. Palin rose in state politics to jobs requiring executive ability. Her successful conduct of the negotiations with Canada, Canadian provinces and American states over the Alaska pipeline was a larger executive task than anything handled by Mrs. Thatcher until she entered the Cabinet and, arguably, until she became prime minister.

Mrs. Thatcher's most senior position until then had been education secretary in the government of Edward Heath where, as she conceded in her memoirs, she lacked real executive power. Her political influence within that government was so small that it took 17 months for her to get an interview with him. Even then, a considerate civil servant assured Heath that others would be present to make the meeting less "boring." Her main political legacy from that job was the vitriolic slogan, "Margaret Thatcher, Milk-Snatcher," thrown at her by the left because of a budgetary decision she had opposed to charge some children for school meals and milk. It was the single most famous thing about her when she defeated Heath for the Tory leadership in 1975.

At this point she became almost as "controversial" as Sarah Palin. Heath, for example, made it plain privately that he would not serve under her. And Sir Ian Gilmour, an intellectual leader of the Tory "wets," privately dismissed her as a "Daily Telegraph woman." There is no precise equivalent in American English, but "narrow, repressed suburbanite" catches the sense.

Mrs. Thatcher attracted such abuse for two reasons. First, she was seen by the chattering classes as representing a blend of provincial conservative values and market economics -- Middle England as it has come to be called -- against their own metropolitan liberalism. They thought this blend was an economic dead-end in a modern complex society and a political retreat into futile nostalgia. Of course, they failed to notice that their modern complex society was splintering under their statist burdens even as they denounced her extremism.

Second, Margaret Thatcher was not yet Margaret Thatcher. She had not won the 1979 election, recovered the Falklands, reformed trade union law, defeated the miners, and helped destroy Soviet communism peacefully.

Things like that change your mind about a girl. But they also take time, during which she had to turn her instinctive beliefs into intellectually coherent policies against opposition inside and outside her own party. Like Mrs. Palin this year, Mrs. Thatcher knew there were serious gaps in her knowledge, especially of foreign affairs. She recruited experts who shared her general outlook (such as Robert Conquest and Hugh Thomas) to tutor her on these things. Even so she often seemed very alone in the Tory high command.

As a parliamentary sketch writer for the Daily Telegraph (and a not very repressed suburbanite), I watched Mrs. Thatcher's progress as opposition leader. She had been a good performer in less exalted positions. But initially she faltered. Against the smooth, condescending Prime Minister James Callaghan in particular she had a hard time. In contrast to his chuckling baritone she sounded shrill when she attacked. But she lowered her tone (vocally not morally), took lessons in presentation from (among others) Laurence Olivier, and prepared diligently for every debate and Question Time.

I can still recall her breakthrough performance in a July 1977 debate on the Labour government's collapsing economy. She dominated the House of Commons so wittily that the next day the Daily Mail's acerbic correspondent, Andrew Alexander, began his report: "If Mrs. Thatcher were a racehorse, she would have been tested for drugs yesterday." She was now on the way to becoming the world-historical figure who today is the gold standard of conservative statesmanship.

Mrs. Palin has a long way to go to match this. Circumstances may never give her the chance to do so. Even if she gets that chance, she may lack Mrs. Thatcher's depths of courage, firmness and stamina -- we only ever know such things in retrospect.

But she has plenty of time, probably eight years, to analyze America's problems, recruit her own expert advice, and develop conservative solutions to them. She has obvious intelligence, drive, serious moral character, and a Reaganesque likability. Her likely Republican rivals such as Bobby Jindal and Mitt Romney, not to mention Barack Obama, have most of these same qualities too. But she shares with Mrs. Thatcher a very rare charisma. As Ronnie Millar, the latter's speechwriter and a successful playwright, used to say in theatrical tones: She may be depressed, ill-dressed and having a bad hair day, but when the curtain rises, out onto the stage she steps looking like a billion dollars. That's the mark of a star, dear boy. They rise to the big occasions.

Mrs. Palin had four big occasions in the late, doomed Republican campaign: her introduction by John McCain in Ohio, her speech at the GOP convention, her vice-presidential debate with Sen. Joe Biden, and her appearance on Saturday Night Live. With minimal preparation, she rose to all four of them. That's the mark of a star.

If conservative intellectuals, Republican operatives and McCain "handlers" can't see it, then so much the worse for them.

Mr. O'Sullivan is executive editor of Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in Prague, and a former special adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His book, "The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister" (Regnery), has just been published in paperback.

"This is the 'Real' Santa"

Check out the article below.

It’ll warm your heart and restore your faith that the true meaning of Christmas hasn’t been lost, if you’ve been having some understandable doubts about that due to the crass commercialization that often seems to overwhelm the holiday season.


The Saintly Side of Nick
Merrifield Santa Claus brings manger front-and-center
Gretchen R. Crowe Arlington Catholic Herald

It’s a sight to see: a real, live Santa Claus on his knees, hands folded, inclining his head reverently toward statues of the Holy Family. Then, still kneeling, he becomes “maestro Santa” — leading children and their parents not in “Jingle Bells” or “Up on the Housetop,” but in a verse each of “Oh Come, All ye Faithful” and “Silent Night.”

In case you think you’re having a Christmas hallucination brought on by too much eggnog or an overabundance of holiday films, rest easy. This is just how they do Christmastime at the Merrifield Garden Center just outside the Beltway in Merrifield at Lee Highway and Gallows Road.

Rather, this is how John Buckreis does Christmastime. The Annandale man’s approach to Santa Claus “as the modern-day St. Nicholas” has kept generations of families returning to the jolly old elf’s garden center home for nearly 30 years.

The 78-year-old tries not to turn his Christian message into a lecture or an in-your-face religious experience, but instead imparts his message subliminally, using “Santa’s Alphabet Calendar” instead of an Advent one, and mixing religious songs with the secular. If the kids have deeper questions about the true meaning of Christmas, they can look to mom and dad for answers. “I turn it over to the parents,” said Buckreis, a parishioner at St. Michael Parish in Annandale. “I’m forcing the parents to become involved in Christmas and they love it. They want it.”

“This is the real Santa,” said one of those parents, Lisa Davis, who has brought her two boys to Merrifield for the last six years. “He makes you believe from the time he walks out until the time you leave. He includes Jesus into his performance. That’s what the real meaning of Christmas is.”

Let’s be real here, though. Most kids wait in line — sometimes for hours — not to talk about the New Testament, but so they can climb into Santa’s sleigh with their Christmas lists, eyes wide in anticipation that their conversation will lead to a toy-filled Christmas morning. That, after all, is their right as children — and part of the excitement of the season. But as they slide off his knee, Santa has two things ready for them — a lollipop and a holy card.

“No other place does that,” said Andrea Albanese, a parishioner of St. James Parish in Falls Church, who has brought her children to see Santa for the last five years. “It’s pretty counter-cultural.”

For 63 years — since he was 14 — Buckreis has breathed a Christian spirit into Santa Claus, beginning in the Buffalo orphanage he called home. In a homemade suit of dyed cloth and cotton balls, “I was considered a very, very ugly Santa Claus,” he said. He went door-to-door in wealthier neighborhoods, serenading households with Christmas songs in exchange for donations of used toys.

The unique St. Nicholas arrived in Northern Virginia in 1966, where he appeared at various small businesses throughout the area. But it was Merrifield Garden Center in the mid-1970s that offered him space — their entire warehouse from the end of October to the end of January — and complete creative control over his program and environment. Every year just before Halloween, the head elf re-creates his house in time for his debut at the beginning of Advent.

The Garcia family, including Kyle, 9, Miranda, 8, and Kaylie, 2, all parishioners of St. Francis de Sales Church in Purcellville, flocked to see Santa Claus last weekend. Not only has their mother, Michelle, been bringing them since the oldest was 2, but she herself used to climb on his lap — and there are photos to prove it.

Santa gives a reminder of the real reason behind the December holiday, Kyle said while waiting in line.

“Some people just think it’s about presents,” he said. “It’s not just about presents, it’s about Jesus.”

“The kids truly believe,” Michelle added. “They get the excitement of the traditions of Christmas and they know that there is a Santa, but they know the true meaning behind Christmas is really Jesus.”

Santa’s house is truly a work of art. Signs hanging from a ceiling covered in lights proclaim “Merry Christmas” in 50 different languages. Two trains run constantly, one around a little ceramic village, another elevated on tracks high above. Each day during his opening “press conference,” Santa Claus answers questions — his favorite food is chocolate chip cookies and his reindeer run faster than a jet — and opens a letter on his calendar. Each entry has a corresponding short “homily” that reinforces the religious spirit of Christmas.

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” Albanese said. “He puts the meaning into the season.” Will McGowan’s daughter, Amy, attends the Academy of Christian Education in Reston. This is her second year visiting the Merrifield Santa, “but we’ve heard about this from many people for many years,” McGowan said.

“He’s the best Santa,” he added. “He leaves the commercialism out and brings what the true meaning of Christmas is. It’s as simple as that.”

“I get the best reward,” Buckreis said. “If (St. Nicholas) was alive on this earth today, he would say, ‘I am putting Christ back into Christmas where He belongs.’” Santa will be in Merrifield until Dec. 23, when he closes up shop and heads to the North Pole.

Washington, P.C.

Article from National Review by John J. Miller:

Washington, P.C.
The new Capitol Visitor Center has a shaky grasp of history

Carpenters follow a simple rule: Measure twice, cut once. The builders of the brand-new Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) might have benefited from a similar adage about checking facts before etching them into stone. Just a few weeks before the opening of their $621 million underground complex on December 2, they were trying to correct a dumb mistake. A major display misidentified the nation’s motto as “E pluribus unum.” In reality, the national motto is “In God We Trust,” as Congress established by law in 1956. Anyone who looks closely at the panel in the front of the exhibition hall will see the temporary plaster fix-up job.

Confusion about the motto is the type of innocent blunder a person might make while playing a casual game of Trivial Pursuit, but not the kind of error you’d expect to see chiseled into the hallowed halls of the Capitol. And some conservatives worry that this is more than a routine case of federal incompetence. “There’s a terrible movement to rewrite our history and obscure our faith,” says J. Randy Forbes, a Republican congressman from Virginia who chairs the Congressional Prayer Caucus, about the CVC.

In September, Forbes and more than a hundred members of the House, from both parties, released a letter to Stephen T. Ayers, the acting Architect of the Capitol: “We have been troubled to learn in recent weeks that some aspects of the new CVC . . . [may] reflect an apathetic disposition toward our nation’s religious history.” Their efforts have led to improvements, but it’s a fight that shouldn’t have needed waging in the first place — and even in its aftermath, plenty of problems remain unaddressed.

Last fall, Ayers came under fire for a policy that seemed not merely apathetic toward religion, but actively hostile. A boy from Ohio wanted to give his grandfather an American flag that had flown over the Capitol. He contacted his congressman, Republican Michael Turner, whose staff worked to fulfill this ordinary constituent request. When the flag and its accompanying certificate showed up in Turner’s office, however, something wasn’t quite right. The boy had asked for an inscription on the certificate that honored his grandfather’s “love of God, country, and family.” The certificate, however, did not include the word “God.” Turner asked for an explanation from the architect’s office and learned about a policy against religious expressions on flag certificates. He and several other members of Congress complained, and the prohibition was quickly eliminated. “The Architect of the Capitol is no longer censoring the Architect of the Universe,” said Rep. Tom Feeney, a Florida Republican, at the time.

The immediate problem was solved, but many conservatives were startled by its mere existence — and they observed that it came in the wake of a trend toward the effacement of religion from the public squares of Washington. David Barton, a historian who heads WallBuilders, an Evangelical organization, had tried to call attention to it. The FDR Memorial, dedicated in 1997, contains no mention of God. Neither does the World War II Memorial, opened in 2004. Carved on one of its walls is a short D-Day message by Dwight Eisenhower, but the quote ends just before Ike seeks “the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” Barton is convinced this isn’t accidental: “It’s hard not to see the bias. Religion is completely scrubbed out.”

The Capitol, by contrast, is full of religious imagery. Eight large pictures ring its massive rotunda. One is titled “Baptism of Pocahontas.” In another, Pilgrims kneel in prayer, surrounding a Bible opened to the first page of the New Testament. Two more feature crosses. Perhaps the most prominent display is in the House chamber, where the words “In God We Trust” appear on the wall above the speaker’s rostrum.

Even so, the Capitol is occasionally called a “secular temple.” While tourists on pilgrimages to Washington don’t always have faith on their minds, many of them do want to see where their legislative representatives work. Unfortunately, the Capitol wasn’t built to receive guests in today’s large numbers. The idea for an underground visitor center on the building’s east side goes back several decades. In the early 1990s, members of Congress envisioned a structure only slightly smaller than the one that was actually built — “all for a mere $71 million,” as the Washington Post put it at the time. Republicans objected to the cost, however, and the project was shelved. But it didn’t vanish. When a lunatic gunman killed two Capitol Police officers in 1998, Congress felt a need to overhaul its security procedures, and as part of the plan, it authorized $100 million for the CVC.

The congressional Big Dig was on — and the expenses started to pile up. Within two years, the CVC’s price tag rose to $265 million. Then came 9/11, the anthrax attacks, and more worries about security. New budget: $373.5 million. The opening was delayed. Today, the estimated construction cost of Congress’s next-door pork-barrel project is $621 million, almost nine times what Republicans once deemed too steep.

The CVC will prove popular with tourists. When it opens, they’ll see a big difference in convenience and efficiency. Rather than standing in long lines on sweltering summer days, they’ll be able to make advance reservations on a website and walk into an air-conditioned facility. They’ll also get to watch an orientation film in one of two theaters, eat in a 530-seat restaurant, and choose from 26 restrooms. (There are only five public restrooms in the Capitol itself, and they aren’t easy to find.)

They’ll also have a chance to stroll through a large exhibition hall and study educational displays on Congress and the Constitution — and that’s where the controversy over content arose. When Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, explored the hall, he wasn’t pleased. “There was an obvious absence of any accurate historical reference to our religious heritage,” he says. He noticed the misidentification of the national motto, but the problem went much deeper — and he took it to the floor of the Senate. “In touring the CVC, I found the exhibits to be politically correct, left-leaning, and secular in nature,” he said on September 27. “There seems to be a trend of whitewashing God out of our history.” He noted that although the hall displayed a couple of Bibles, a replica of the House chamber didn’t include “In God We Trust” above the speaker’s rostrum.

There were other questionable omissions. One display, for instance, quotes from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787: “The authors of the Northwest Ordinance believed educated citizens were critical to the success of self-government. Article 3 declared, ‘. . . education shall forever be encouraged.’” But that’s a highly selective excerpt that secularizes the document. Here’s the full quote from Article 3: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”

DeMint and Forbes pressured the Architect of the Capitol’s office to improve these displays. At one point this fall, DeMint put a hold on the bill that would have allowed the CVC to open. He and Forbes wound up winning several concessions: The replica of the House chamber now includes “In God We Trust,” and the Northwest Ordinance is more fully explained. In addition, the Pledge of Allegiance will be carved into the walls of the CVC and there will be new displays on the role of religion in the nation’s heritage.

Yet the exhibition hall still includes plenty of liberal bias. A section on FDR describes the New Deal, in rah-rah fashion, as “a creative burst of energy that initiated economic recovery” during the Depression. There’s a panel on the 19th-century impeachment of Andrew Johnson, but nothing comparable on the 20th-century impeachment of Bill Clinton (except a brief mention in a video). What’s more, conservative icons are almost totally missing. There’s a picture of Robert A. Taft, but no image of Barry Goldwater or Henry Hyde. At the same time, the CVC is full of dutiful tributes to female firsts: the first woman elected to the House (Jeannette Rankin), the first woman to serve in the Senate (Rebecca Felton), the first woman elected to the Senate (Hattie Caraway), the first woman elected to both the House and the Senate (Margaret Chase Smith), the first “woman of color” and first Asian-American woman elected to Congress (Patsy Mink), the longest-serving woman in Congress (Edith Nourse Rogers), and so on.

An alcove on modern history includes big pictures of an Earth Day rally, an ACT-UP protest on AIDS funding, and hippies at the Pentagon in 1967. It’s not as if the CVC made no attempt at balance: There’s also a black-and-white photo of Vietnam-era “pro-war demonstrators” that’s one-quarter the size of the full-color anti-war image. Yet the CVC seems a little hung up on Vietnam. On the same wall, there’s a hard-to-miss picture of a woman hugging a tombstone at Arlington National Cemetery. The caption reads: “The nation continued to mourn its fallen soldiers of the Vietnam conflict. The war claimed over 58,000 casualties.” (Actually, it claimed over 58,000 deaths; the number of casualties, which includes injuries, is a lot higher.) The photo is a powerful symbol of loss. A close look at the tombstone reveals, however, that it’s for a man who died in 1982, seven years after the last American soldier left Saigon. He was not a “fallen soldier of the Vietnam conflict,” but a 76-year-old veteran of three wars.

There are plenty of little errors, too. The presidential election of 1824 was not the first one “to excite high public interest and participation” (read about the elections of 1796, 1800, and 1812). The states did not ratify ten of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution passed by Congress (they ratified eleven: The first ten are the Bill of Rights and the eleventh is the 27th amendment, finally approved in 1992).

It’s hard to avoid a sad conclusion: Congress’s monument to itself isn’t even good enough for government work.

Great Licence Plate from Illinois