“Washington, D.C. is where ideas go to die.”

That was my first impression of the nation’s capital, as a junior in college, when I juggled political internships (and girlfriends) in the impossible heat and humidity of our nation’s capital, looking for something to believe in. My father often reminds me of that line, which was my verdict on the whole experience, and perhaps also the beginning of a political awakening from left to right.

Not that it was a bad summer, on the whole. I found a tiny sublet in Georgetown that belonged to two black girls, one of whom was studying religion and dating a future NFL draft pick. She called me once, mortified, apologizing for having left a pornographic film on the VHS player, explaining that it had just been a lark. (I hadn’t even turned on the machine

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