"This Other Town" by John Feehery...

John Feerery is a long time face in the Washington DC politics scene. According to his website's "about" page, he is is President of Communications and Director of Government Affairs for Quinn Gillespie and Associates, Washington, D.C.’s top public affairs firm. He is also a frequent commentator on the political landscape, widely quoted around the country and often seen on such television programs as CNN’s The Situation Room, MSNBC’s Hardball, and Bloomberg Television’s Money and Politics. He is also a columnist for The Hill. Feehery has worked for almost two decades in a variety of influential positions both as a staffer for three prominent members of the United States House of Representatives Republican leadership and a legislative strategist in the private sector.


I don't share his politics, but I have to tip my hat to him for his writeup on the shootings earlier this week at the Naval Yard, where 12 people lost their lives.

An except from his piece, which he's titled, "This Other Town:"

Mark Leibovich wrote a memorable book about official Washington, its fancy parties, its self-absorbed culture, the incestuous nature of lobbyists, journalists, pundits, strategists, party planners and socialites.

But there’s a whole other town out there, right under the nose of This Town, and you could see the face of that town in the obituaries of those who died on Monday.

Twelve people were gunned down at the Naval Yard, and I can pretty much guarantee that nobody from This Town had ever met them.

There are plenty of people in this other town in the Washington DC metro area.  Some serve at the Navy Yard, some at the Pentagon, some the Geospatial agency, some at the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, Health and Human Services, and various other government agencies.

The people for this other town commute in from distant places like Woodbridge and Waldorf, Rockville, or PG County.  They take the Metro, or the VRE or the MARC, or they catch the bus, or they slug their way in.

By slug, I mean they basically hitch-hike (in an organized fashion, of course), by jumping in other people’s cars at specific points on the highway, which allows the drivers to drive on the HOV lanes.  It’s an ingenious system, mostly done organically.

That’s what folks do in this other town to get into work.

These folks work in the Federal government because it is good steady work and the benefits are pretty good, and they like what they do.  Some are stirred by patriotism to serve their country in the military, while others like working in fields like health policy or with agriculture programs.

Read the full article here, its well worth it...

Source: 

http://www.thefeeherytheory.com/2013/09/18/this-other-town/