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Cry, the beloved building.
I have been lucky and have walked the halls of the Houses of Parliament in London, visited the Elysée Palace in Paris, the Bundestag in Berlin, and the Kremlin in Moscow.
But it is the Capitol, the building on a hill in Washington, that fills me with awe but it isn’t awesome or frightening, and doesn’t exalt in power.
The Capitol is at once romantic, imposing and egalitarian. Ever since I first set foot on Capitol Hill, the building has been for me, an immigrant, the elegant expression of everything that is best about America: open, accessible and shared.
Until terrorism changed things, anyone could walk into the Capitol without security checks. Taxis could draw up and let you out under the arches that designate the Senate or House entrances.
It hurt me in profound ways to see a mob, inspired by the rogue president and his lickspittle enablers, trash that hallowed place; try to lay waste to the temple of American tolerance, freedom, excellence and uniqueness; to treat it as an impediment to their coup, to their lies-fed catechism of overthrow.
To see any great building desecrated is painful, but to see it happen to the Capitol is to witness heresy against democracy, against Americanism, against our better angels and highest aspirations.
When Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was engulfed in flames, I realized the building was a prayer: the elegant stone, wood and plaster embodiment of man’s search for God. By that measure, the Capitol is the embodiment of man’s search for fairer government.
As a reporter, the first thing you notice about the Capitol when you go there is how open it is once you have gotten through the metal detectors at the entrances. You walk the halls, ride the elevators and the little trains that run between the Capitol and the House and Senate office buildings, and eat in the cafeterias. The members have privileges, like their own entrances, reserved elevators and reserved train seats. But you can see legislators in the corridors and snack bars, conferring with aides, and often those who are there to get help or to lobby for a cause.
The work of government is at its most accessible to outsiders in the Capitol. Although there are tours, it is still best to roam the building alone, from the tunnels in the basement (where you end up when you take the elevator or