Monday, June 29, 2009

Statehood for DC, This Time for Real?

This rather interesting exchange took place today between a reporter and Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary:
Q Can I ask you one more question, just quickly, on sort of a D.C. issue? And that is, why hasn't the President changed his license plates on the presidential limousine? Is he planning to change them to the "Taxation Without Representation" plates or --

MR. GIBBS: I think rather than change the logo around the license plate, the President is committed instead to changing the status of the District of Columbia.

Q But it's a symbol, though, that a lot of people look at as --

MR. GIBBS: Well, I guess I would ask you to ask people in Washington whether they'd like to have that status changed or that symbolism screwed on to the back of a limousine.
Gibbs went on to say the legislation is moving through Congress, supported by the prez. He didn't mention representation, he mentioned statehood. Some in the press corps seemed shocked. They should not have been.

This is one of those talked about fantasies that nobody ever thinks will occur. But a lot of fantasy is in the process of occurring right now. Googling around a bit here are two articles on this issue, one from Mother Jones and this one from a guy named Longstreet, who believes the solution is to shrink the District down to the Constitutionally mandated 10 square miles then partition the remaining land back to the states that supplied it originally.

That sounds correct, but it's certainly far from politically correct, which is more important to this president. "New Columbia" would essentially be a square doughnut, that is if they don't bypass the GD piece of paper and just turn the whole thing into a state.

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