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Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times' legendary Supreme Court reporter, has decided to retire to Yale to write and teach. This week, she surveys her experience in a long article for Week in Review. Give it a read. I particularly liked this line, which elegantly encapsulates an experience many have upon moving to Washington:
I can survey all the mountains, stretching back to the morning in 1978 when I first walked up the court’s marble steps — mistakenly, as it turned out, because people with business at the court actually use a less majestic but more practical side entrance at ground level.Even the powerful see their lives fill with drudgery and mundane errands. They just hide it by occupying buildings adorned with columns and steeples and assorted other architectural flourishes that distract from the often-dull routines that populate the inner chambers. But watch a Congressman sitting through the third hearing on a topic he doesn't understand, and you'll see men who consider themselves History's Great Actors living a life that, for the moment, is interchangeable with a mid-level manager at a corporate convention. I've always found something about that to be pleasingly egalitarian.
