CVC opens, can’t shake controversy ($621 million Capitol Visitor Center)

The Hill ^ | 12/2/08 | Jordy Yager

[2ndDivisionVet]

Here’s the Youtube video:
Harry Reid doesn’t like smelly tourists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP6qeBPl_HA

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks!

Keyword Harry Reid

[unkus]

Harry Reid doesn’t just smell, he stinks.

[dr_who]

Why Nevada hasn’t demanded this world class a-hole resign yet, I’ll never know.

[dr_who]

Reid makes Daschle look good.

[ari-freedom]

It stinks!

[Issaquahking]

At a morning dedication ceremony, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) offhand comment about how the taxpayer-funded center meant he and other lawmakers would not have to smell sweaty tourists raised eyebrows.

America needs to understand exactly what the elected leadership thinks of the pawns....

[Jotmo]

I have a reservation for a capitol tour on Monday.

I want to see what $621 million of our money gets us.

I'll do my best to stink the place up just for you, Harry.

[rvoitier]

Two recent posts re:CVS from, The Corner yesterday--

Monday, December 01, 2008

Washington, P.C.   [John J. Miller]

The brand new, underground Capitol Visitor Center opens to the public tomorrow. Cost to taxpayers: $621 million. I checked it out last month and wrote about it for the current issue of NRODT (subscribe!). The article is called "Washington, P.C.: The new Capitol Visitor Center has a shaky grasp of history," and here's how it starts:

Carpenters follow a simple rule: Measure twice, cut once. The builders of the brand-new Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) might have benefited from a similar adage about checking facts before etching them into stone. Just a few weeks before the opening of their $621 million underground complex on December 2, they were trying to correct a dumb mistake. A major display misidentified the nation’s motto as “E pluribus unum.” In reality, the national motto is “In God We Trust,” as Congress established by law in 1956. Anyone who looks closely at the panel in the front of the exhibition hall will see the temporary plaster fix-up job.

Confusion about the motto is the type of innocent blunder a person might make while playing a casual game of Trivial Pursuit, but not the kind of error you’d expect to see chiseled into the hallowed halls of the Capitol. And some conservatives worry that this is more than a routine case of federal incompetence. “There’s a terrible movement to rewrite our history and obscure our faith,” says J. Randy Forbes, a Republican congressman from Virginia who chairs the Congressional Prayer Caucus, about the CVC.

12/01 11:21 AM

and today

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Raw Deal in the CVC   [John J. Miller]

The new Congressional Visitors Center opens today—yesterday, I blogged about my article on the secular liberalism of the CVC in the current NRODT. In the article, I mention the CVC's celebratory treatment of the New Deal:

A section on FDR describes the New Deal, in rah-rah fashion, as “a creative burst of energy that initiated economic recovery” during the Depression.

I had contacted Burt Folsom, author of New Deal or Raw Deal?, for a comment about this description. I didn't have the space in the article to quote him, but here's what he said by email:

That "creative burst of energy" almost ruined the country. It produced the NRA and AAA, for example, both of which were so poorly crafted and so outlandish in action that the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional (in the case of the NRA, by a 9-0 vote). Jacob Maged did not have his "confidence and prosperity" restored; he went to jail for giving a nickel discount to customers who wanted their pants pressed. That 100 days was the worst constitutional and economic debacle in U.S. history. The 79 percent top tax rate that ultimately resulted from that spending orgy was the highest in U.S. history and kept the high unemployment going for six more years. In the early months of 1939, six years after that miraculous 100 days, the U.S. still had 20 percent unemployment. So much for the promised "economic recovery" the panel boasts of having been achieved.

So there you have it: the congressional version of the New Deal vs. reality.

12/02 11:07 AM

[freekitty]

Maybe this thing should have never been built. Ya think?

[Enchante]

Hope Ayers and Dohrn don’t decide to bomb this $700 million building!

If there were any real reporters left they would be adding Reid and Pelosi & co. what they think of people who bomb public buildings, whether Ayers and Dohrn should have served time, and whether Obambi should have to answer for “palling around” with them.

AND, reporters should ask Ayers and Dohrn whether they plan to bomb the new Capitol Visitors’ Center etc. Here we have two known real-life terrorists living in plain sight, and no one wants to challenge them on what they stand for.

[psjones]

I have news for Reid, the stink that comes out of Washington is far worse than the stink from the tourists, and no matter what, we can smell that stink all the way out here in the west coast.

[wideminded]

I visited the Capitol in 2002, not so long after September 11th. I don’t know if things have become less paranoid since then but after a very long period of waiting outside and undergoing security procedures, we were kept in a very tight group and not allowed to see very much at all. I got a lot more out of watching the C-SPAN special on the Capitol. They needed something like the CVC, although it sounds like the price tag was much too high.

[incredulous joe]

Hmmm, sounds like an opportunity for an unspeakable DC FReep event? Don't want to play the chauvinistic pig, but ladies, do yourselves a favor and sit this one out!

A lunch of frijoles negros, po’ boys and stuffed cabbage. Beans for beaners and lactose will be served for the lactose intolerant. The meal will be followed by a tour and crop dusting of the brand spankin’ new Capitol Visitor Center.

Possible names for the event;

“Flat-u-palooza”

“Sound and Fission”

“The First Annual Harry Reid Methane Festival”

“The Great American Smoke Out”

[HarleyLady27]

Reid's comment was the most degrading comment I have heard come out of a government official in quite awhile.

Such degrading comments should make him step down from his senate seat in shame....or better yet, Nevada should DEMAND he step down...

Pompous a$$hole.....

He had best learn he works for US not the other way around!

[rdl6989]

Rotflmao!

[incredulous joe]

It’s a subject that manages to find its way into more than a few FR threads, but I know that we have some stinky FReepers out there!

And you know who you are.

Now we have the ability to wield this awesome power ~ often so misunderstood ~ for the good of the Republic!

[Sir_Ed]

I’ve never been to DC. Does this center mean that people will no longer be allowed into the actual capitol building, where the congress debates?

Ed

[PalmettoMason]

“Tourists line up in summer and winter,” said Reid. “In the summertime, because of the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”

Hmmmm... I wonder if the Moderator would let me change my FReep-name to "Smelly Tourist"?

This needs to be remembered for a long, long time.