What's bugging me today? The imaginary elitist unAmerican Washington.

Sarah Palin says Washington is full of elite insiders who need a touch of "main street Wasilla." Really? Guess what, Madame Governor. Members of Congress, the White House staff, lobbyists, and federal bureaucrats aren't city people from Washington. They come from big and small towns all over the country. Geesh. Duh. How dumb can... oh, never mind.

But if Sarah Palin says one more time that Washington (and New York, California, Boston, New England...) is out of touch with "real" America, I'm gonna scream. Oh wait, I don't have to! Thank you, Joe Biden, for saying that we are all tired, tired, tired of this crap. Just how much of America does she not like? How much of America does she not count as "real"? How exactly would that work as Vice President?



So here's a bit of Washington reality for Main Street. Washington residents are regular people, living in an American city. Politicians in Washington are elected legislators who work here and live somewhere else. Anne Applebaum wrote a nice response to Palin's anti-Washington talk in the Washington Post.


"Although there are plenty of native Washingtonians working as doctors or cabdrivers or bank managers, most of the people who actually control the city's most famous institutions -- Congress, the White House, the federal government -- weren't born in Washington. Like Sarah Palin, they are from "in the heartland," in places like Wasilla, and it is the values of the heartland and Wasilla that they must be therefore presumed to embody." read more...

What happens in Washington when there is a political shake up? Well, right now real Washingtonians are watching as a pack of visiting, elite, political insiders from Texas go back home.

Karl Rove the primary author of President Bush's two successful national campaigns and perhaps the most influential and controversial presidential strategist of his generation, became the latest Bush adviser to head for the door, announcing that he will resign Aug. 31.

Alberto Gonzalez' departure means that almost none of the Texans who came to town with Bush still hold influential positions in the administration. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, his education adviser in Texas and a former White House staffer, is the most prominent exception.

David Dunn will be leaving his position as Chief of Staff to the U.S. Department of Education effective October 3, 2008 to serve as Executive Director of the newly formed Texas Charter Schools Association (TCSA)

Lawrence A. Warder will be leaving two positions he has held—acting chief operating officer of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and chief financial officer—effective October 10 and returning home to Texas.

Buh-bye.