Re: How has Washington changed?

Description: Washington is a lot slicker now, Mo Rocca says.

Question:  How has Washington changed?

Transcript: Well Washington was far less glamorized.  I think Washington was very boring and really was kind of sleepy.  There was no more boring day to me in Washington than a Sunday because nothing was open.  And I think that’s maybe the way it was in a lot of cities.  But it was dead at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.  I mean downtown when I was growing up was in bad shape.  Washington is still . . . Washington is . . . Washington has . . . Washington is a lot slicker now.  It’s still one of the most unsexy cities on the planet.  No matter how good looking you are, if you’re in Washington you just become less sexy.  It’s the opposite of New York.  It just kind of leeches the sex appeal out of everything.  And so you know Aaron Sorkin did his best, I think, to make it seem sexier than it is, but no.  But it certainly has . . . It has decent food now.  It has decent shopping.  It’s always had great parks and monuments.  I mean it’s a city that is essentially about parks and monuments, and I would say that it’s verging on becoming too much of a memorial city now that everything has to have a monument and a memorial.  I mean some of the ones . . . Maya Lin’s . . . The Vietnam Memorial is the last really great one, really ballsy, really like . . . I still remember the controversy when it . . . when it appeared at first.  And what a remarkable achievement that she could have created a monument revered by both veterans and critics of the war, which are obviously sometimes the same people.  But . . . And then they followed it up with the Korean War Memorial, and now the World War II one.  And now it’s just becoming too much of a mall of monuments – I mean literally the Mall, but yeah. 

Question: How has the political process changed?

Transcript: Over the Clinton and Bush, Jr. administrations, Washington is much more a part of the pop culture imagination overall.  I think . . . You know they say Washington is Hollywood for ugly people.  Well Hollywood has become Washington for just weird looking people with all the strange surgeries, the tightenings, and pullings and all that.  But no.  The New York media; you know Los Angeles; they’re much more interested in Washington and what goes on.  And you know just as everybody . . . Just as everybody has become savvy about how Hollywood works . . . I mean Iowa grandmothers know box office returns now on a weekly basis it seems like.  Everybody seems tapped in and much more knowledgeable about . . . about how a campaign works; about . . . about the horse race aspects of politics; about what matters when it maybe shouldn’t matter.  You know what’s a wrong move?  What’s a right move in a campaign?  Everyone seems to be much more plugged into the plot points of a campaign.

Recorded on: 2/14/08