![]() Among all this youth, equally repressed lawmakers try to focus on the business at hand. Young women hover in and out of doorways, with the siren charms of the young, pretty and proper. Young men in tight belts, hair gel and loafers scurry about in repressed animation. The place can crackle with sexual energy. But take a walk through the marble corridors of the Hill, and you find something a little different. Washington politicians are obliged by ritual to be pillars of family values, upholding moral duty. That's supposed to be Miami or Los Angeles or New York. Yes, I know it sounds strange to think of D.C., Wonk Central, as a place throbbing with libidinal promise. Many internships, like Chandra Levy's, are designed to last only a few months: long enough to fall in love or make an impression but not long enough to settle into their surroundings, to build a network of close friends who look out for one another. And many interns, in a city completely new to them, with few old friends and many new faces, easily lose their bearings. Almost all politicians have spouses and children, but they leave them hundreds or thousands of miles behind and work long, stressful hours in a city that isn't their home. Ominously, Gary Condit and Chandra Levy.Īnd both of these roles - intern and pol - can be lonely ones. Famously, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. ![]() Except, that is, when something goes wrong. The dynamic between them is so old and so cherished that, like any of the city's famous monuments, it eventually just blends into the background. has a uniquely strange demography, skewed toward young interns in their 20's and elder patrons in their 50's and 60's. Most cities have a variety of neighborhoods, old people, young people and every age in between. They are one of the things that make Washington different. If you catch the G2 bus in the morning as it wends its way from the dorm rooms and group houses toward downtown or if you hop on the Metro toward Union Station and Capitol Hill, you will see them in droves: dozens of former high-school presidents, khakis everywhere, red ties and sensible red dresses, hair still wet from a rushed shower. Each June and September, a new wave lands ashore, just as fresh and vigorous as the last one. Like countless other Washingtonians, I came to the capital city as an intern.
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