The Conservative Soldier

We hear a lot about Washington gridlock. Conventional wisdom holds that Washington is broken, that there has not been so much decay found in Washington since General George opened his mouth and shocked his dentist.

But I am pleased to report that I’ve come back from Washington with good news:

Sorry to disappoint the economic doomsdayers, but Americans are going on vacations, seeing sights and spending money. And, people from across this nation and around the world remain awe struck by the symbolic grandeur of Washington, D.C., and its famous monuments, even though, we are reminded constantly, the United States is increasingly “unpopular”.

Presidential pretender Barack Hussein Obama and power-crazed Democrat leaders desperately try to convince Americans that we are a fragile, despised nation, a shrinking world power, and that we have no hope for the future, at least not without them in charge.

But this sense of futility simply was not apparent as we visited the Washington area last week. The Metro transit system was jammed with tourists. Lines were well out the door in front of attractions such as the National Archives. Lunchtime at Union Station’s mall and food courts was total chaos. Out-of-towners queued up everywhere to devour midday meals. The crowds inside the U.S. Capitol were positively suffocating.

At the Lincoln Memorial, amid sweltering afternoon temperatures, visitors descended from Indianapolis and India, Joplin and Japan, Fresno and France, honoring Abe and perching themselves upon those massive steps to better take in The Mall and the distant Washington Monument.

We need a lot of things in this country. We need more energy independence. We need tighter borders. We need a rebound in the housing markets. Despite our having become rather needy, I was buoyed by my D.C. visit because I came away with a sense that we are certainly not needy when it comes to optimism.

Optimism remains the No. 1 intangible of a thriving democracy, and it is our leading export to be sure. I didn’t hear complaints in Washington. I heard fathers reading from The Constitution — the original version, beneath the glass — to their sons. I heard marveling about the courage of George Washington as we toured his lovely Mt. Vernon above the Potomac River. I heard chuckling over the audacity of Thomas Jefferson, paying off an artist to make him taller than other founding fathers in a portrait that hangs in the Capitol Rotunda.

And, as we stood outside the Oval Office in the west wing of the White House last Sunday, I heard the sound of awed silence, shattered only by the beating of my heart. The Oval Office does not need a President standing in it to blow you away. It is not a room. It is the epicenter of America. It is optimism’s Ground Zero. It was far more emotional to see in person it than I’d anticipated.

At a press conference last week, President Bush reiterated his optimism for the future in the face of tough questions about gasoline and food prices. His upbeat view is born out of knowing how Americans buck up when things get tough.

“The market works,” Bush said. “People can figure out whether they can drive more or less. They can balance their own checkbooks. The American people are plenty capable, plenty smart people.”

Bush has adorned the Oval Office with portraits of plenty capable figures Washington and Lincoln, among others, and a western oil painting, entitled, “A Charge to Keep I Have”, a constant reminder of his job description. There are busts of Eisenhower, Lincoln and Winston Churchill. And, on the center table, sits a bowl bursting with sherbet-hued roses, a special rose breed named after the First Lady, Laura Bush.

The Oval Office stirs the senses, and the mind’s eye. You can clearly see LBJ slumped at his desk, the weight of Vietnam crushing his spirit. You can see Gerald Ford, leaning back contemplatively in his chair, his pipe smoldering. You can see JFK looking his brother Bobby in the eye, calculating the threat of Soviet weapons in Cuba. You can see Ronald Reagan scribbling a note, a jar of jelly beans at the ready.

It is difficult to comprehend what it must feel like for a President to walk in on Day 1 of his new job, and more incomprehensible how it feels to walk out on that final, chilly January morning. The Oval Office has a sobering effect. It is a place that demands courage, love of country, and the unwavering belief in the march of freedom and the sowing of freedom’s seeds, attributes that come naturally to Sen. John McCain. It is not a place for damning America, for belittling the sanctity of democracy, for appeasing Islamic Jihadists, for self-absorbed rhetoric.

The abundant optimism that washes over (most of) us every day in America, and that I saw on the faces of people who flocked to the Nation’s Capital last week, originates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Oval Office is its wellspring.

As I turned to go, I wondered if Barack Obama has ever, even once, thought about that.