Neocon Central

Above: This is no way to start your day.

I am terrified to walk the streets around the building where I work.

At any minute, I may be invaded in the name of DEMOCRACY.

I knew that working in downtown Washington D.C. would probably mean I'd see political figures walking around, but I wasn't prepared for this: in the last two days, I have been innocently walking down the street, only to look up and find myself being stared down by the dark heart of neoconservatism.

It started on Thursday. Swamped at work, I'd taken the Metro in early so that I could be at the office by 8. Understandably, I was dead tired, as 8 a.m. is a time when no decent person should be awake. Or, for that matter, running into any of the architects of the Iraq War.

As soon as I stepped out of my Metro station (Farragut North, on the Red Line) and turned right to head for my office, I see a fit older guy who looks very familiar walking right towards me. He's by himself, and his jacket is off (it's fucking hot here these days). As he walks right past me, we make eye contact, and that's when I finally recognize him: former two-time Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (remember, he held the post under President Ford, too).

Left: Rumsfeld brings sexy back.

I was flabbergasted. I thought about saying something, but he was gone before I could yell "Yeah dude, really great call on trying to run a war with an undermanned, undersupplied fighting force, and then not planning at all for the aftermath of said war, and also for not paying the attention that you needed to to the conflict in Afghanistan. You're a shitty administrator, and your former Presidential aspirations were pathetic and laughable!" So that kind of sucked. Also, it wound up being a shitty day at work, because honestly, how could a day that starts with Rumsfeld end well? I'm just glad I got through it without being put at the bottom of a naked pyramid.

I'm not sure what he was doing around there, but he must have been attending some event at the Mayflower Hotel, which is directly behind my building. The Mayflower Hotel is a popular hotspot for political events; a while back, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had a hotly-publicized powwow there after she conceded the nomination to him. There were lots of women with pink signs outside. Also, the Mayflower Hotel is where Elliot Spitzer used to have sex with his really, really expensive prostitute. The place was crawling with Secret Service all week.

But my adventures in neoconservatism weren't over for the week. (You know you're having a bad week when Rumsfeld isn't even the worst thing that happens to you.) Yesterday, after another shitty day at work (funny how when you do election-related work, your bosses just sort of go apeshit when the election gets to be 90 days away; all of a sudden they want all us attorneys filling in all sorts of absurd spreadsheets so they can track what we do), I took off around 6. I had the choice to go home, or to head to my bank so that I could deposit a reimbursement check for $14.12. Since I now live in abject poverty, I opted to go deposit my check. As I headed for the bank, I stopped at the curb, waiting for the light to change so that I could cross Connecticut Avenue. And who suddenly pulls up next to me but the Man with the Moustache, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, wearing his characteristic look of shaggy-haired rage?

Left: John Bolton demonstrates what he would do to the United Nations if the United Nations had a neck.

We stood next to each other for a good thirty seconds, and, again, I wanted to say something, but the man was obviously seething (he's probably still fuming at the fact that we are currently in diplomatic negotiations with Iran instead of blowing up the U.N.), and I feared that if I said anything, he'd go into a berserker rage and cut me to shreds with his adamantium claws. I said nothing, and eventually we crossed Connecticut Avenue together, him probably thinking "This godless liberal probably can't wait to say something about my filthy, unhygienic moustache," and me praying really hard that this wasn't the moment that God decided to smite Bolton with some holy lightning; I don't want to be collateral damage to the surgical strike on Bolton, no matter how reprehensible the man is.

We eventually parted ways, and I deposited my laughable little check, and then I headed to the Metro, and managed not to run into Paul Wolfowitz the entire way.