I spent the weekend in our nation's capital, where on a two-hour train ride--delays, connections, delays, connections, delays--I noticed the gratis advertisement the DC Metro provides the president of the United States. On the back of the fare card, there is a smiling picture of Barack Obama surrounded by the words: "Celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama 44th President of the United States." I can't recall DC Metro celebrating the inauguration of George W. Bush in any similar manner, particularly seven months after the event had occurred. But upon googling the matter, I discovered that the Obama Metro card isn't without precedent. In 1993, the transit authority similarly honored Bill Clinton. It's not exactly the North Korean transit system, but pictures of living politicians on subway currency embody too much of the cult of personality for an American city. So too does a 92 to 7 percent vote split among 2008's two major party presidential candidates, which goes a long way to explaining DC's iconography of Barack Obama on its Metro fare cards.

I love this city. These idiots complained about changing the name of the National Airport METRO stop to Ronald Reagan National Airport was too costly and silly, yet didn't seem to have a problem changing all the signs and literature regarding the most ridiculously named stop on the Green Line:

U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo

Try saying that ten times fast.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago when reviewing a recent visit to our nation’s capitol. The place is completely enamored with this guy. Doesn’t matter that the high percentage in the area that voted for him likely has no idea who he is or what he’s doing. But they love him and proudly display that on posters, t-shirts, stickers, etc.

A general comment: Washington is a very impressive place. But I kept getting the idea that it would likely not be such an impressive place without huge injections of our money to keep it pristine and tip-top. After all, there is not one thing there that requires a profit to be made for it to remain viable.

I would suspect that in an environment like that, one could lose touch with reality.

Those of us in industry may take exception to that...

Sorry Homie. I know there are many good, honest, bright and talented people working for us in D.C. But overall, efficiency and government are typically two words that don’t end up in the same sentence. And I think that might have a lot to do with money never being an object as it is with other concerns where it can impact success or failure and in general the survival of the entity.