Metro: People and Issues

Washington Post Metro columnist Robert McCartney was online Monday, June 22, at Noon ET to talk about his new column and take your questions about anything from Michelle Rhee to immigration issues in the region to Metro service to D.C. voting rights and more.

From McCartney: "For 27 years, The Washington Post has paid me to keep my opinions out of the newspaper. Now it's going to pay me to put them in. I'm the Metro section's newest columnist. I'll be writing Sundays and Thursdays about all kinds of issues in the greater Washington region, which I'm taking the liberty of defining as every place from Richmond to Baltimore and Ocean City to West Virginia. This assignment represents a big change for me, because until now I've been a hard-news journalist rather than a commentator. I've striven to report facts and other people's opinions, but not my own. As an editor since 1992, most recently heading the Metro staff for nearly four years, I've even labored at times to wring other journalists' opinions out of stories. Now I'm putting all that even-handedness behind me. After a reasonable amount of reporting and analysis, I'm going to say what I think."

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Robert McCartney:

Hi everybody. This is my first Web chat in my new role as a columnist for The Post's Metro section. As I said in my first column yesterday, I'll be writing Sundays and Thursdays about all kinds of issues in the greater Washington region. I expect to be writing in particular about local politics and government, social issues, development and transportation, crime, education and the environment. Think that's enough? I'm going to try to be fresh, analytical and objective, while still expressing my views forcefully.

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washingtonpost.com: After 27 Years, I Have a Lot On My Mind (AP, June 22)

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Robert:

Your unequivocal support for D.C. equal rights is, well, absolutely refreshing, especially as it comes from a source not exactly predisposed to championing equal political rights for D.C. residents in recent years -- The Washington Post.

Your principled position on this issue is of critical importance, particularly in light of the fact that the sun is now setting on the so-called Davis bill, which was, in my opinion, the political equivalent of Plessy v. Ferguson, prior to the Supreme Court's finding in Brown v. Board of Education.

Welcome to the D.C. fray.

Robert McCartney:

My support for D.C. voting rights prompted more questions than any other subject, so I'll start with that. To recap, I believe it's not enough to give D.C. residents a vote in the House of Representatives, as the bill now stalled in Congress proposes. They should get 2 senators as well, just like Wyoming, which has a smaller population.

The battle to grant equal voting rights to the entire population is one of the most important in American history. It's about as vital as it gets when we talk about building and preserving democracy.

It took the Jacksonian era (early 1800s) to extend the vote to white men with little or no property. It took the Civil War, the nation's greatest trauma, to extent the vote (in theory, at least) to black men. It took the Suffragist movement to extend it to women (early 1900s). It took the civil rights movement (1950s and 1960s) to ensure that blacks actually were able to exercise their legal right to vote.

But residents of the District of Columbia are still excluded.

Unfortunately, I have to say the prospects aren't great for resolving this historic shortcoming.

I believe it's probably going to require a Constitutional Amendment to give full representation to the District. That requires support from 3/4ths of the state legislatures. I think it's going to be hard to get that kind of majority. Given how Democratic the District is, I think it'll be hard to get enough Republicans to support it to get an amendment.

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Gaithersburg, Md. : So you've lived in the D.C. area almost as long as I have? At least that gives you some memories on how some things got the they are around here. My real question, will your bosses allow you to dig beneath the veneer of liberalism and good government image in Montgomery County, and shine some light on the waste, and hypocrisy there?

Robert McCartney:

My family moved to the D.C. area in 1959 when I was in first grade. I've come and gone several times, but graduated from B-CC high school (Class of '71, go Barons!) and have lived in Bethesda for 15 of the last 17 years.

If there's "waste and hypocrisy" in Montgomery County, then I will certainly do my best to expose it. My bosses will not only allow me to do so, but they will encourage me in the process.

If people have suggestions for exposing waste and hypocrisy in Moco, or anywhere in the region, please email me your ideas at robertmccartney@washpost.com.

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Arlington, Va.: I've always been amazed how little attention is paid to Arlington, a classic good government jurisdiction where most everything seems to work. Columnists seem to be more interested in the horrors of D.C. and PG County, class cases of mismanagement, where not even your dogs are safe from the sheriff and where Marion Barry is still good for a column or two. Isn't good management worth a column or two?

Robert McCartney:

You have a valid point. Good civic management is worth covering, both to give credit where credit is due and to highlight examples of solutions that others can follow.

I said yesterday that I'll applaud when local officials do well, and that applies to the private sector, too.

Still, one of our top priorities in journalism is serving as watchdogs, and holding authorities accountable to the public for their failings. This is not only a vital civic role, but, we have found, it typically engages the audience more effectively than "happy news."

We journalists like to say: "We don't cover the airplanes that land safely. We cover the ones that crash."

So expect some of both from me, but with more of an emphasis on what is NOT working.

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Dunn Loring, Va.: Having spent 27 years in the protective cocoon of the Post's newsroom where everyone has the same political outlooks and world view, what makes you think you understand the real world?

Robert McCartney:

Well, first of all, I have NOT spent 27 years in the "protective cocoon of The Post's newsroom."

From 1983 to 1986, I was The Post's Mexico City bureau chief. I spent a lot of time covering civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua.

From 1986 to 1989, I was The Post's correspondent based in Bonn, then-West Germany, where I covered central Europe including the fall of the Berlin Wall in November, 1989.

From 1989 to 1992, I was based in Manhattan, where I covered Wall Street including Donald Trump's first round of bankruptcies.

And from 2001 to 2003, I was managing editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris (when The Post still owned half of it).

I have reported from the Middle East and Arab world, both for The Post and earlier for the Associated Press, and have interviewed (in press conferences) both Moammar Ghadafy and Saddam Hussein. I came under Iraqi artillery fire on the front line of the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s. I got thrown out of a town by police in Kosovo for reporting about brutal beatings of ethnic Albanians.

Is that enough "real world" for you?

However, as you can see, most of that experience out in the field was before 1992, when I became an editor. So I AM out of practice hustling out to do on-scene reporting. I am already getting out of the office much more than in recent years, and will be trying to get to know the D.C. region in all its variety from as much first-hand experience as possible.

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From Dr. Gridlock:: Welcome, fellow columnist. You said in your debut column Sunday that you'd like to see us build a Metro transit beltway around Washington. That sounds swell, and I'd love to see it, too. But how do you think we can convince anyone to cough up about $30 billion for transit? MD and VA now have their hands full financing the Purple Line and Rail to Dulles.

Robert McCartney:

Here's a question from my friend and fellow Post columnist Bob Thomson, better known as Dr. Gridlock.

It will indeed be a big, long-term commitment to get the local community (taxpayers and especially developers), and the state and federal governments, to come up with the very, very high cost of building a Metrorail-quality "Circle Line" around the city, parallel to the Beltway.

But we need to do it anyway. It will take decades, but we should start planning it now.

I don't have time here to list all the reasons, but here are a few:

1) We've got to link up the spokes of the existing Metrorail line, to make commuting by transit more attractive and get cars off the road. It's absurd that taking the Red Line from Silver Spring to Rockville requires going downtown.

2) With gasoline prices headed higher, we've got to reduce dependence on cars.

3) With the climate endangered by greenhouse gases, we've got to reduce dependence on cars.

4) With traffic so clogged that the region risks getting in a position where people don't want to come work in the region because of the congestion, we hae to reduce dependence on cars.

A good first leg would be connecting the Red Line in Montgomery County with the new Silver Line to run through Tysons Corner. Let's get a Metrorail link between Montgomery and Fairfax counties! Shoppers can go by train from Montgomery Mall to Tysons Galleria!

Yes, that means we need to run a Metrorail line across the Potomac north of downtown. We can do it across the American Legion bridge, or we can build a new bridge.

We'll want to run Metrorail across the Wilson bridge at some point, too.

Dr. Gridlock, I look forward to your support.

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Chantilly, Va.: Robert: will your purview extend out to Loudoun County? We'll have 300,000 residents in a couple more years.

Robert McCartney:

Yes, my purview extends to Loudoun County and other outer counties such as Prince William and Charles. As I said in my first column yesterday, I define my coverage area as every place from Richmond to Baltimore, and Ocean City to West Virginia.

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Alexandria, Va.: The United have been trying to get a local government to build them a new soccer stadium; what are your views on public funded stadiums such as Nationals Park and the $50 million gift to Abe Pollin?

Robert McCartney:

I look at public financing of stadiums on a case-by-case basis. A major factor to weigh is whether the new stadium will promote healthy economic development.

So, I was supportive of using tax dollars to pay for Nationals Park, because it was a centerpiece of efforts to develop the long-neglected Anacostia waterfront. However, it does seem that the cost ended up being higher than it should have been.

I haven't studied the $50 million "gift" (your word) to Abe Pollin enough to make a judgment now. But the Verizon Center has played an enormous role in the very welcome redevelopment of the 7th Street N.W. - Penn Corridor community. So I don't begrudge him that.

I believe Jack Kent Cooke deserves tremendous credit for paying out of his own pocket to build FedEx field. Even though taxpayers picked up some associated costs, it was a gift to the community.

It irritated me considerably when I went to the Ravens' stadium in Baltimore last season to cheer for the Redskins, and suffered various indignities and insults from rival fans enjoying a first-class stadium that MY tax dollars helped buy. It irritated me even more when the 'Skins lost.

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Robert McCartney:

I'm going to keep answering questions for another half-hour or so. Normally these chats last an hour, but my ace producer Rocci Fisch says I can keep going.

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13th St. S.E.: Welcome. Now what are your views on: A new Soccer stadium for D.C. United? Dog ownership? School Vouchers? Food on the Metro? And whatever else Fisher railed about.

Thanks for doing the chat.

Robert McCartney:

I'm for a new soccer stadium for D.C. United. Soccer is an up-and-coming sport, our kids increasingly play it, and our region is attracting legions of Central Americans and other immigrants for whom the game is their most popular pastime. I haven't studied it enough to know where to build it or how much to spend.

Dog ownership? What kind of a question is that? My family has a dog. We love it dearly. She's getting kind of old. We walk her regularly. We pick up her, er, droppings in empty Washington Post delivery bags (very convenient for that purpose). Everybody should clean up after their dogs. Owners should restrain their dogs if they're violent.

I like cats, too.

School vouchers: That's a tough one. I will be writing about that, but I need to think about it more. I start with competing perspectives. On one hand, I'm for spending education money where it will have the most benefit. School vouchers can help with that. However, because of my support for separation of church and state, I object to tax dollars being spent for religious education.

Don't get me wrong. I am not at all anti-religious. In fact, as an editor, I supported devoting resources to coverage of religious issues. I think religion and religious people often get short shrift from journalists, who tend to be more secular in their outlook than the rest of the population.

So, I will be looking at the extent to which taxpayers' dollars in the form of vouchers are paying for kids to receive religious training. I'm opposed to that, on First Amendment grounds.

And you can remind me later of other things about which Marc Fisher (who just gave up his excellent column to return to editing) railed.

I know I agree with Marc on one issue. I don't think judges, or anybody else, should be allowed to waste the courts' time with multimillion-dollar lawsuits over dry-cleaning.

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Olde Town: Will same-sex couples be able to get a civil marriage license in your coverage area before the end of this calendar year?

Robert McCartney:

I don't think so. I believe it will happen in the District, but not by the end of this year. There are too many hurdles. The D.C. Council has to approve it, and then Congress and/or the courts will be weighing in.

I do believe the District will begin this year to recognize same-sex marriages that took place in other states.

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Alexandria, Va.: What do you say about the constitutionality of D.C. Voting Rights?

It's pretty clear to most scholars that the only way to get true voting representation in DC would be to write an amendment to the Constitution, which would require a referendum by all 50 states. I certainly would concede to a superior argument, but no a single columnist, politician, or talking head has been able to argue that voting rights could come through any other means than a Constitutional Amendment.

Robert McCartney:

Yes, I agree that D.C. voting rights probably will require an amendment to the Constitution. But that doesn't require a "referendum" by all 50 states. If I recall the Constitution correctly, it requires a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress, and then ratification by 3/4th of state legislatures.

I think it'd be tough today to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate, and virtually impossible IN THE CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE to get approval of 3/4th of state legislatures.

The only way to get voting rights for the District, in my view, is to wage a long-term political campaign that shames the rest of the nation into granting this essential democratic right.

That's what did it for women. That's what we'll have to do for the District.

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Temple Hills, Md.: Do you think that by firing teachers and administrators any chancellor can fix the educational problem of D.C.? Or is it better and wiser to re-instruct those educators?

Robert McCartney:

I think that fixing D.C.'s schools certainly does require firing some low-performing teachers and administrators. Private companies do that all the time. Why should a school system, or any government agency be different?

Of course nobody likes firing people. So it'd be preferable to "re-instruct" those educators, as you say, if training and reeducation raises their performance.

A key factor to weigh is the method used to evaluate whether the teacher or administrator is performing well. The method should be transparent and consistently applied, and the teacher or administrator should have an opportunity to improve his or her performance before getting axed.

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Northern Virginia: Welcome! Do you plan to cover foibles and fun stuff as well as serious politics? After many years, I hope we can retire Marc Fisher's obsession with snow days (short version: he's against them) but perhaps you have similar observations on what makes our region unique. I would like to hear them.

Unfortunately, for me, the all-consuming traffic has begun to swamp anything else that's special about our area. We sold something on Craigslist and a guy took two hours to come up 95 on Saturday, getting here an hour late after 15 and 20 mph stop and go, hot and bothered. A few days earlier we also found ourselves trapped on 95, going south this time, and also not during rush hour. It takes the fun and interest out of life here when you can't get from point A to point B. Smart growth advocates may avoid making it too much worse, but I have yet to hear of a plan for making it better.

Robert McCartney:

Yes, I plan to write about foibles and fun stuff from time to time.

I will not pledge now to refrain from writing about snow days. I loved them when I got off from school in Montgomery County as a kid, but even then I thought they were too quick to shut the schools. The explanation then, as now, is that the weather was worse "up county."

Your point about the traffic is extremely well-taken. Road congestion is a genuinely serious threat to the future prosperity and success of the region.

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Fairfax County, Va.: Why does Metro not have a columnist who lives in Virginia and understands Virginia? When did Metro last have a local columnist who lives in Virginia?

Robert McCartney:

We share your concern on this issue -- to some extent.

Specifically, I cannot remember when Metro last had a columnist who lives in Virginia.

However, we dispute that we have to live in Virginia in order to "understand" it. Fisher, who lives in the District, wrote a lot of fine columns about Virginia, and Dr. Gridlock covers it extensively. Jay Mathews, who lives in Maryland, writes regularly about Virginia schools and works out of our bureau in Alexandria.

I'm a Marylander, but I've spoken a lot about the Virginia governors' race in my weekly question-and-answer sessions about local issues on WAMU 88.5 radio. (Commercial break: I'm on at 8:51 a.m. Fridays.)

I've also been the top editor responsible for Metro coverage for nearly 4 years, and we did a lot of work on Virginia. We won a, um, Pulitzer Prize for covering the Virginia Tech shootings. In Virginia.

So we ask to be judged by our work and not our addresses.

That said, we are aware of the perception that we neglect Virginia news, and we combat it. We want to cover events and issues in Virginia just as seriously and comprehensively as anywhere else. We have more readers in Virginia than any other state -- far more than in the District, and slightly more than in Maryland. So it's important to us.

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Bethesda, Md.: Dear Bob --

Congratulations on your new assignment! The Post desperately needs a fresh voice on the crucial issues dividing our communities. Your commitment to hard-hitting critical analysis articulated in your first column is sorely needed.

C. Wright Mills (whom you quote) had vital insight into the role of the press in serving the power elite of American society: "The hierarchy of publicity has replaced the hierarchy of descent and even of great wealth."

Please exhibit editorial courage to deviate from pet Post political positions like their kid glove treatment of the D.C. school superintendent and the voucher program. Tell it like it really is, Bob, not how they want to hear it.

A fine start -- now keep up the good work!

Robert McCartney:

I have nothing to add to this delightful comment, except that I hope to live up to the exhortation.

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Arlington, Va.: I am sure you get this all the time, so let me be the one to ask: Any relation to Paul McCartney? By the way, regardless, you should help arrange for Sir Paul to conduct one of these discussions.

Robert McCartney:

Yes, I have been getting this question consistently since 1963. I even answered it once in a previous Web chat on washingtonpost.com. No, I am not related to Sir Paul. Regrettably.

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Arlington, VA: Robert, best of luck with your new column. I look forward to reading it.

One thing we need to get out of the way - what are your thoughts on Dippin' Dots?

Robert McCartney:

This writer is persistent. I'm not crazy about Dippin' Dots and prefer regular ice cream, especially when it's low-fat, low-sugar, etc., and thus less guilt-ridden.

I try to be a tolerant person, though, so Dippin' Dots fanciers will not be a target for my wrath.

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Robert McCartney:

I'm going to wrap it up now. Despite going over the scheduled time by nearly an hour, I haven't had a chance to get to all 99 questions.

For what it's worth, here are some other issues that people asked about: D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Fairfax recycling, the Metropolitan Police Department, the Chesapeake Bay, TRIM in Prince George's County, how to combat crime generally, street repaving mishaps, the Yusuf Acar case, and why can't The Post invest more resources in local coverage.

I will try to get to some and perhaps all of these topics in future columns or Web chats.

Thanks for reading! I look forward to many more Web chats.

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