| Potomac Confidential
With Marc Fisher
Post Metro Columnist
Thursday, April 24, 2003; Noon ET Potomac Confidential fills the midday lull with discussion of the latest news and a rigorous slicing and dicing of the issues that define who we are and where we live. In his weekly show, Washington Post Metro columnist Marc Fisher veers wildly from serious probing to silly prattle, and is open to topics local, national, personal and more. The transcript follows. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Marc Fisher: Welcome aboard, spring frolickers. Much to talk about today--SARS, Iraq, D.C.'s police chief, Fairfax's fiscal realities, Tuesday's column on the role consultants play in the District government, D.C. school board chief Peggy Cafritz's odd response to last week's column about her flip-flop on vouchers, whatever's on your mind. Let's go ...
Silver Spring, Md.: OK, I'm baffled by the point of Tuesday's column on consultants. Yes, lots of money is wasted on consultants. But it appears the Office of Technology has hired a good one, and $162 an hour isn't terribly out of scale for the top designer on other government contracts. What's the problem? Marc Fisher: $162 an hour isn't out of scale? Man, that's some scale you've got there. I heard from quite a number of folks in private industry who said they could have gotten the same work done at one-third the price or less.
Maybe Lazar's good; I have no reason to doubt that he is. But that's not the question. The question is why the city believes it is ever justifiable to make people enormously rich for work paid for by the taxpayers. And the even larger question is why the city cannot take care of its needs with its own more than sufficient staffing level, without using wasteful consultants.
Arlington, Va.: Looks like you need to add the DC Sports Commission to your list of waste. Does Bobby Goldwater really need $40,000 for an apartment for 6 months? Must be some place! Marc Fisher: Serge Kovaleski's dogged reporting on the Sports Commission certainly reveals it to be a sinkhole of public monies -- all the more appalling because of how little the city has to show for all that spending. A failed Grand Prix, a failed and bankrupt marathon, various failed efforts to bring big-time boxing here, and still no baseball. Quite a performance record.
Washington, D.C.: Can you BELIEVE them Yankees? I say Soriano may be the best player in baseball, and major kudos to the kid, Almonte. Your thoughts? Er, as they relate to Metro Washington, of course. Marc Fisher: Almonte, the Jeter substitute, is the most pleasant surprise, and you have to give heavy kudos to the warhorses of the starting lineup, especially the aging David Wells and Roger Clemens, both of whom were considered on their last legs before the season started. The only real weak spot on the team is the bullpen, and both Rivera and Karsay look not quite ready for a return to action.
Washington, D.C.: Why is there such a big deal about SARS? It appears to kill what, 4-5 percent of the infected? No one issues travel advisories for the flu, but that kills far more people, doesn't it? Or is it just that it's new, and therefore scary? Marc Fisher: You're right to tamp down the hysteria and you're right -- or at least that's what the docs were saying a few days ago -- about the 4 percent death rate. But 4 percent is a pretty impressive number for a quickly spreading illness that's new and scary in its symptoms. The newness is indeed the most important factor here, and the geographical specificity of the reporting as the disease spreads.
D.C. - 20002: Rick Santorum's comparison of homosexuality to incest and such -- a tempest in a teapot or a longer term problem for the Republican party? Marc Fisher: Probably a tempest in a bedroom. The country is pretty well divided on matters of sexuality, and even though the intellectual elites are pretty strongly on the side of extending various legal recognitions to homosexuals, there remains a powerful bias against homosexuality in much of the population. The Republicans are usually happy to cater to that crowd, if subtly. Santorum being anything but subtle, he gets to become the lightning rod on this issue. But the polling data I've read indicates a big disconnect between the media/academic elites and the heartland on gay issues.
Alexandria, Va.: Marc -- doncha think Santorum has been in Washington long enough to know when to back off and shut his mouth? He is making a lot of Republicans nervous in an almost evenly split Senate ... Marc Fisher: Isn't that Santorum's role on most topics? He's indistinguishable from the political shouters of cable news channels -- the Joe Scarboroughs and Sean Hannitys of the world. Does that make more reserved Republicans nervous? Sure, but they can easily distance themselves from his antics.
Chevy Chase, Md.: Why didn't you feel the need to contact Cafritz to discuss her position before writing the column? Marc Fisher: Glad you asked. I have spoken to Peggy Cooper Cafritz on many occasions, and some of the quotes in that column from her were from an interview I conducted with her in her house a few months ago. The main purpose of that column was to juxtapose her anti-voucher comments against her newfound support for vouchers. In both instances, I quoted from her published writings -- in one case from her own Web site, in the other from her op-ed in the Post. I saw no reason to call her and say, "Did you really write these pieces that appear under your own byline on your own Web site and in the Post?" That would have been foolish excess.
She then denied that she'd written or even read the piece on her Web site. But that is a lie. I know and she knows that it was hers -- like many public officials, she has staff people who draft such pieces, which she then reviews and edits, but when she puts her name on them, they are hers. And I have heard her express her anti-vouchers position in very strong terms on multiple occasions.
Long Beach, Calif.: Now that the Boss has come to the defense of Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks, can we now see Clear Channel's cartel of over a 1,000 stations to be what it is, namely UN-AMERICAN? I'm starting to think that media consolidation is our greatest threat to our American society. And you, what's your opinion Mr. Fisher? Marc Fisher: Huh? The Dixie Chicks thing was a classic overblown story. A handful of stations banned their music because of their anti-war position. The very fact that only a handful of stations silenced the Chicks while hundreds of others continued to play them shows that the Clear Channel conspiracy theory is bogus. There are many good reasons to criticize the consolidation of ownership in radio and other media, and homogenized content is indeed one strong reason. But this was not an example of that problem.
Washington, D.C.: I need to vent. Why do the nice new blue and red Metro cars have the hideous, clashing old orange seats at the ends of the cars? This is so annoying, from an aesthetic point of view. I mean, did someone not order enough blue vinyl? Marc Fisher: Excellent question -- I hadn't even noticed. Answers, anyone?
Arlington, Va.: As a long time Arlington resident, and a Democrat who cross parties to vote against Moran, I have agreed with your columns that he must go. I am glad to see that there are possible candidates to replace him. Do you think that there will be a rough primary or is there a possibility that Moran will do the honorable thing and just step aside? Marc Fisher: Not a chance. Watch for a bruising primary, with big bucks flying and nasty TV spots cluttering your evening viewing. Moran's latest move: endorsing Joe Lieberman for president. See, I like Jews! Can you spell chutzpah?
SARS: Marc, I know there is a SARS discussion later and I know this isn't really "local" but man oh man am I tired of hearing people complaining and being worried about SARS. Is it serious, yes, but come on. More people die from the flu each year! Shoot, more people are probably killed in crosswalks by nutty drivers than will be killed by SARS. Everyone just take a deep breath (pun intended) and relax. Be aware, be cautious, but relax! Marc Fisher: Agreed, but heck, it's a new disease, and if we've learned anything in the past couple of years, it's that people love to have something new to be afraid of. Seriously, you're right, and the hysteria will die down, but probably only after it gets worse, as the disease hits closer to home.
SARS: Actually, the problem is in part that the symptoms aren't scary. It's only late in the day, so to speak, that you discover you have a serious problem. And it seems to be disproportionately hitting first responders. Supposed it hit only, say, newspaper columnists, or politicians, or big-time sports figures ... But next time you have a heart attack, or roll over in your SUV, are you going to tell Sally Squires or Warren Brown about it or head straight for xxxx General? Marc Fisher: So you think it's getting more ink because it's hitting docs and hospital workers? That could well be true, and that does add an extra bit of scare to the situation. After all, when health workers are hit hardest, it raises in all our minds the vision of docs and nurses not being there when we need them, and that is unsettling indeed.
Mt. Rainier, Md.: There is a broad range of opinion on whether being gay is bad/evil, and yes the educated tend to be more liberal on that question as on others. But I think you'll find that the gap narrows a lot when people are polled as to what they want done about it. Even conservative Americans who feel gay sex is evil frequently do not want to interfere with others' privacy. Mostly they simply argue against teaching kids about homosexuality (as though it needed to be taught!). The anti-sodomy laws have been vanishing from state to state because of that. Marc Fisher: Good point -- Republicans are indeed split on personal morality questions because of the growing libertarianism in much of the country, which argues for live and let live approach to personal behavior. The schools remain the hot spot for debate on gay issues, and probably should be the focus of debate because that's where transmission of values happens in a public setting.
Santorum: As disturbing as his anti-homosexual comments were, the one that took the cake is the comment: "It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution." WHAT?! Is he from Montgomery County originally? Marc Fisher: Well, he has a point there. An enormous body of law has been built on an awfully shaky foundation. Go looking for any mention or even insinuation of a right to privacy in the Constitution and there's not a whole lot to stand on.
Sex: Santorum's equation of gay sex with incest was a bit over the top. But I think he knows he doesn't have a case, because he used what I think of as domino reasoning. When people don't have a case, they make their case by saying that x "could lead to" y, not by saying that x is bad even if it stays with x. I have a deep hatred for this form of reasoning and turn off when I hear it. Marc Fisher: And before you know it, you're fighting a war in Vietnam. (Or Iraq, one could argue.) Dominos carry a big burden in politics. But I'm with the AP reporter who conducted that interview with Santorum -- anytime you find yourself discussing man on dog sex with a United States Senator, you want to think very seriously about finding another line of employment.
Re: Metro seats: The braintrust that is Metro thought people would miss the orange and gold decor so they kept seats at the ends of the cars for nostalgia's sake ... if that's the case, I say let's go all the way and charge us what they used to charge people when Metro opened! Marc Fisher: Seriously? They broke the color scheme for nostalgia purposes? I find that hard to believe.
Rick Santorum and Rick Lazio: Separated at birth? Marc Fisher: So the antidote is Hillary Clinton? Say it ain't so.
Columbia Heights, D.C.: Hi Marc, Have you heard when the renovation of the Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art will finally be finished? It seems to be taking FOREVER, and leaves a huge dead spot in the middle of the most happening part of the city. Anyone out there have the completion date?
Marc Fisher: 2019.
No, seriously, I have no idea. I think I read 2004 somewhere, but there've also been budget-related delays in the renovation. Anyone?
Washington, D.C.: Lloyd Grove's item on Walter Washington was classic D.C. -- the Mayor gives him a special plate, and DMV immediately tries to dun him for false parking tickets. I guess he's lucky they didn't boot or tow his car. Marc Fisher: And this is the much-ballyhooed new city computer system at work, the one that was supposed to make DMV a manageable bureaucracy.
Washington, DC: Hey Marc, D.C. residents can invite the Presidential candidates to D.C. for our primary here: D.C. First Web Site Marc Fisher: Go for it. There's been a spate of sniping in the press lately about the D.C. presidential primary date, snide remarks from political writers and pundits dismissing the early date as a stunt. Well, yes, it is a stunt, but it could turn out to be a powerful one, and it sends an essential message in a legal and apt manner. Now it's up to the candidates to take it seriously.
12th Floor Metro Center: Marc, Excellent column on the outrageous salaries D.C. is paying these consultants. What can I, as a D.C. taxpayer, do to stop this madness? Marc Fisher: Thanks -- you can let your council members and the mayor know that this is an unacceptable use of your tax dollars, and you can support candidates who propose to break up the old cronyism gang. Of course, Tony Williams was such a candidate five years ago, and look what's happened. But that's really the only thing we as voters can try--look for candidates who really are not part of the city's system and seem committed to change. Williams has lived up to part of his promise, but on this question, he's fallen rather thoroughly for the Control Board's consultants-as-panacea line.
Washington, D.C.: $162 really isn't "out of scale." You need to get out of your cube more often Marc. Marc Fisher: In or out of my windowless cell, $162 a hour is an enormous, mind-boggling sum. And since it's more money than 96 percent of Americans make, I think it's fair to wonder just who it is who's leading an isolated existence.
Washington, D.C.: While I certainly agree that D.C. is far from a model for fiscal responsibility, I think your column on consultants missed the point. Unless there's a suggestion that those working at the median income are competent to perform these tasks, the comparison of consulting salaries to median income in D.C. is completely irrelevant -- and just serves as an "easy" way to rile up the general public without making them understand the complexities of the problem. Marc Fisher: I threw the median income in there to present a sense of scale. I don't know if you can get good computer workers for the median income; you probably can't. Maybe you have to pay a lot more, maybe even twice the median. But the city is paying closer to 10 times the median, and that's just criminal.
Capitol Hill: What amazes me about the city is that with its massive, overgrown bureaucracy, that we can't find decent employees to do the work that they are paid to do and we have to hire consultants. I have a suggestion for the Mayor and the City Council; to balance the budget and finance all the programs that everyone wants funded, don't raise taxes. Just fire a third of the city employees, including many of those useless managers making over a hundred grand a year. I have no problem paying good money for good people. I have a huge problem throwing money down the toilet. Marc Fisher: You've hit on the essential point -- hiring all these consultants is an attempt to paper over the biggest problem of all, the quality of the city's work force and the failure to require performance from the existing employees. Mayors Williams and Pratt came in wielding brooms, but they never employed those brooms, choosing instead to try to fix problems from above, with stronger managers and consultants. Sorry, that doesn't hack it. Someone has to fulfill those consultants' proposals, and as long as you treat those item-fulfillers as untouchables, the problems aren't going anywhere.
Washington, D.C.: One third of $162? For a Senior Tech Consultant? Not bloody likely. Yeah, you can get your nephew to Front Page your junky Web site for chump change, but even in the down economy you aren't getting a Senior Level Tech Consultant for that. Oracle's top folks run $300-500 an hour to show up. And the reason D.C. doesn't do stuff in house? Incompetence. Let's face facts, if D.C. government bureaucrats were measured by ability, over half would be pink slipped tomorrow a.m. That's the real problem here ... we wouldn't need consultants if we just cleaned house and hired competent people instead. Marc Fisher: The city's tech people want to have it both ways -- they say they have installed computer systems that make it possible even for poorly trained employees to work efficiently, yet they insist the city needs hugely-paid consultants to make it all work. Something doesn't compute.
Washington, D.C.: A really top big name lawyer bills at $500 an hour. A partner at a significant firm will bill at $300 an hour. A pretty good lawyer with a reputation will bill at $200 an hour. Sorry, Marc, you're wrong. If these are top notch consultants, top tier talent in great demand, we are getting them cheap. Fact of life. Marc Fisher: Apples and oranges. That lawyer billing $500 an hour doesn't pocket the $500. The firm gets that money and has to pay for its fancy digs and support staff and so on. The consultant I wrote about takes his $162 an hour and puts it directly in his pocket -- he has no office, no staff, no one else to pay.
Washington, D.C.: Please define ballyhoo. Marc Fisher: bal-ly-hoo (n., v. bal'ee hue ; v. also bal ee hue') n. pl. <
-hoos> v. <-hooed, -hoo-ing>
n.
1. a clamorous and vigorous attempt to win customers or advance a cause; blatant advertising or publicity.
2. clamor or outcry.
Arlington, Va.: Charles Ramsey plants a Sun-Times story that he's a finalist for Chicago Police Chief, and turns that into a contract renewal with a huge raise. Mayor Daly must be laughing uproariously over that one! God bless safestreetsdc.com for spreading the truth! Marc Fisher: I doubt Ramsey planted that story, but it sure came at a convenient moment and it certainly helped him skid past the debate about the department's performance. There's no doubt this police department has big troubles, but Ramsey is the first to recognize that. Has he been effective in solving those problems? Mixed record, but I challenge you to make the case that bringing in yet another chief would make things better. The big advantage with Ramsey is that he's willing to admit the problems and seems open to reforms -- bottom line: it probably makes sense to work with him and push for change, as John Aravosis' safestreetsdc site is doing so well.
Re: Consultant fees: Uh, I have a housecleaning "consultant" who comes to my house for about an hour and a half each week. I pay her $90. That works out to $60 an hour for someone to do unskilled labor. If I had someone on my staff full time to do the same thing, I might be able to pay $10 or $12. But I don't need her full time -- and she has to make a special trip to my house just for this one thing. Why is it OK to pay my housekeeper this way, but not D.C.'s consultant? Marc Fisher: Good question, except that the city doesn't use these consultants to pop in and solve the odd problem. The consultants we've been writing about are full-time, extended-term workers. They are city employees in all but name. The work they do could easily be done by regular employees. In fact, in many of these cases, they ARE D.C. employees who then quit their jobs, call themselves consultants, and thereby grab pay hikes of 300 percent to 1,000 percent. Nice deal, huh?
Southwest D.C.: I noticed that today in the Post's District weekly, the editor decided to check and correct some of the statistics that Peggy Cooper Cafritz referred to in a interview at the Brookings Institution last week. Isn't that sort of unusual? While I appreciate getting the real facts, was Cafritz the only person corrected just because the editor considered her obnoxious? P.S. In regards to the Dixie Chicks, I thought that the boycott against them was not much until Lisa de Moraes in her column today mentioned that their single disappeared from the charts a week after the radio boycott started. Marc Fisher: I noticed that too -- in the transcript that starts on page 3 of today's District Weekly. I haven't spoken to the editor, but I'm confident that the answer is that we try to fix any error that appears in a transcript, regardless of who the speaker might be. In this instance, the errors jumped off the page because there's been a lot of talk around town in recent days about Cafritz' propensity to exaggerate or say things that aren't quite right.
On the Dixie Chicks, there wasn't much of a boycott, and it surely did them more financial good than harm -- they're on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, posing nude, with strategic spots covered by reminders of their anti-war stance. They're protesting all the way to the bank.
Washington, D.C.: The D.C. school system doesn't know how many employees it has? How hard can it be to just count the number of paychecks they cut every two weeks? Think I could get a 400k contract for that idea? Marc Fisher: Easily. And then you could hire the rest of us as subcontractors.
Rockville, Md.: Marc, I read yesterday about a plan for "North Bethesda Town Center" at the White Flint Metro that will add 1500 residential units and 1.7 million feet commercial space. They called this "smart growth." I laughed. Does anyone in Montgomery County government think there is any space in the county that should be left undeveloped? Have they ever driven on Rockville Pike? This article says they are eliminating traffic projection as part of the planning. What gives here? Marc Fisher: Matt Mosk's excellent story yesterday detailed how the same county council that ran on a smart growth campaign and promised to control development is now moving to let this developer charge ahead without doing the usual traffic studies.
But this is indeed a smart growth project, in that it is centered on a Metro station and promises to start transforming that particular stretch of the Pike into something a bit less totally car-oriented.
Smart growth only makes sense if you develop the hell out of the immediate areas around Metro stations. Sadly, the NIMBYs seem to be winning in their efforts to undermine such development.
Washington, D.C.: Here's a scenario -- Chief Moose takes Chief Ramsey's job and writes his book after all. Marc Fisher: There's a horror movie for you.
But then Moose could put "D.C." back in his book title.
Derwood, Md.: Today's report that "Governor Gridlock" now leads the consulting group "Coalition for Innovative Transportation Solutions" makes perfect sense, according to an old saying. Consulting: If you're not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem! Marc Fisher: The story is about ex-gov Jim Gilmore heading up a transportation consultancy, to the slackjawed surprise of many in Virginia.
Does this mean he won't run for governor next time? Let's hope so.
Silver Spring, Md.: Has Maryland ever had a governor that has mishandled his first 100 days in office as badly as Governor Bob? I never was a supporter of his, but gosh, I truly fear for the future of our state. Doug Duncan must be already licking his chops at the prospect of running against Governor Bob. Marc Fisher: Ever is a long time, but certainly Ehrlich's start has been a rocky one. What surprised me is how the governor, who initially gave himself very harsh marks for his early performance, is now saying what a wonderful job he's done, if he doesn't say so himself. Duncan and Martin O'Malley must be very pleased about their prospects, but they too are in for some very harsh years. Not only won't they be getting many goodies from Annapolis, but they're also in the same boat as Ehrlich and will have to explain to their constituents why they're cutting programs left and right. Blaming the gov will only go so far.
La Plata, Md.: Marc, on your column today, I think the city is full of it. In college we had a private tow service that got rid of cars parked in our apartment lot illegally. It didn't matter what shape the car was in, all tow trucks had the ability to tow them. We saw a car with no front tires whisked away in under 45 minutes. Marc Fisher: Ah, but towing, like meter enforcement, is an oasis of efficiency in the District government, because, of course, it rakes in the moola. Funny how that works.
Annandale, Va.: The O's drew under 10,000 the other night. Boswell thinks Angelos is deliberately putting out a bad product to suppress attendance and then argue that the Baltimore-Washington MSA cannot support two teams. I think we can certainly support two good teams, and probably one good team and one bad team. What do you think? Marc Fisher: There is no We. Washingtonians, and especially Virginians, have no more in common with Baltimore than we do with Richmond.
Would having a D.C. team hurt the O's? Quite possibly, yes. But would it hurt them if they had a good owner who pumped money and baseball smarts into his product? Not nearly as much. Two teams do well in New York, and often in Chicago and LA, too. The Bay Area has been tougher -- the A's have to be considered a small market team, and they've done very well on the field despite their lack of financial prowess. The O's could end up like that. But there's plenty of money in this region to support both teams.
Lexington Park, Md.: Marc, will we ever see a story from you about the unfairness of the limited use of the DC3 airports (those withing 15 miles of the monument) plus the Air Defense Identification Zone around D.C? As I've told Hoyer, I've quit going to D.C. for fun because it's worthless to drive and now you can't even fly in and catch the Metro. But I hear they re-opened NY's airspace, so maybe I'll spend my cash up there. Marc Fisher: Good idea, though I have to say that the federal restrictions seem reasonable.
More SARS: My favorite SARs story was an article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. Showed a picture of an overweight mother and her overweight teenage daughter shopping for vitamins to protect themselves against the new disease. No one explained to them that maybe, just maybe, their obesity posed more of a health threat to them? Marc Fisher: Hell of a lot easier to don a mask than to shed a couple hundred pounds.
Seat Pleasant: I'm confused re your response to the post on anti-logic governing anti-gay thinking. In your chats you've come across as a pretty clear supporter of the Iraq invasion, and yet you suggest that the reasoning behind it is specious. So what do you really think about the invasion? Marc Fisher: I supported the invasion, but I was giving an example of the domino-style argument that was used as one piece of the justification for the war. The administration helped build opposition to the war by offering so many rationales that they undermined their basic case.
National Portrait Gallery: is scheduled to reopen in 2006, according to its Web site. Marc Fisher: Thank you for that.
Thought Police: The media isn't even reporting the worst of Santorum's comments -- I read the unedited transcript at Salon, and he went on to state: "The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that." He wants the state to send a police officer into your home to "limit 'your' wants and passions"?! Be afraid, Americans. Be very, VERY afraid.
Marc Fisher: He is a strange and dangerous man.
Arlington, Va.: Marc, I don't want to add to the hysteria about SARS, but let me point out that a 4 percent mortality rate, in a highly contagious disease, is a scary thing. Four percent might not sound big, but look around your office. Or your extended family. See 25 people? One of them well be dead soon if this thing becomes endemic. Not exactly made-for-tv movie proportions, but not exactly a good time, wouldn't you say? Marc Fisher: Good point. Thanks, all. We're over time. Back in the paper on Sunday, and we'll chat again next week. Thanks for coming along.
washingtonpost.com: That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.
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