Washington DC: The West Wing

I finally read All The Presidents' Men on the beach of Isla Mujeres, but I still can't pretend to understand how US politics works. And the Washington Post and the New York Times don't help: they seem to break all the JOUR 101 rules about providing context and explanation. It's all acronym and metaphor and the assumption that you have read all the previous stories on an issue over the past three months.

Some things are the same: sitting in the public gallery of the senate, there were only one or two senators in the house below, reading their newspapers. The acting Speaker (the official Speaker is always the Vice-President, but he rarely presides) was sitting with his legs crossed, text-messaging.

But there were differences as well: After listening to three senators debating the merits of the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding program(me) in New Orleans, the final speaker finished and left the chamber. No one else rose to speak, and so the remaining senators and officials just wandered round the chamber and chatted for 15 minutes, till I gave up and left. It seemed senate democracy was taking a break.