At long last, the true crisis facing our great nation has been identified.
That crisis is not inflation, nor is it the cost of groceries, or the price of gasoline (I guess for brevity’s sake, I could’ve just summarized it all with the buzzword “affordability,” but you get a bit of verbosity in this screed, alright).
Folks having to ration prescription meds because their insurance deductibles resemble the GDP of a small island nation ain’t it either. Nope.
The emergency demanding the full, undivided attention of the federal gub’mint and the American people is the state of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The 2,030-foot long reflecting pool, which was designed by Henry Bacon and dedicated on May 30, 1922, attracts something like 24 million visitors annually, if the Wikipedia snapshot of the landmark is to be believed.
According to President Donald Trump, the pool “never worked properly until last week and, right after July 4th, when we drain the water to treat the damage caused by these ‘animals,’ it will again be in perfect shape.”
Trump is referring to what he calls “criminally made algae” that recently appeared in the pool, after his administration shelled out nearly $15 million to renovate it this spring.
A new blue lining was added, leaks were fixed and “nanobubblers” were added to keep away algae, but that didn’t last long, with a massive bloom of the stuff coming, along with paint peeling, in the past few weeks.
Of course, the visible structural problems around the iconic landmark weren’t due to age, engineering or a contractor who apparently made a few boo-boos. No. It had to be vandals, or better yet, Antifa.
Because if history has taught us one thing it’s this: shadowy left-wing activists are notorious for secretly undermining reinforced concrete and bringing on a massive algal bloom.
Also, why should We the People be worried about our tax dollars going to such a project on a series of no-bid contracts? Two firms, after all, Atlantic Industrial Coatings and Greenwater Services did the renovation work, with one handling the waterproofing and the painting and the other installing the “nanobubbler” purification system. I might add that the latter, which handled the purification system, is owned by J.J. Cafaro, who is a close friend and donor to Trump and resembles one of the mobsters in Dick Tracy’s rogues gallery.
But, yes, why ask questions that can be uncomfortable about the quality of work procured through a no-bid contract when it’s so much more exciting to imagine masked radicals spending their evenings attacking expansion joints with tiny jackhammers and the lining of the pool with boxcutters, with blades forged at the Antifa HQ? It’s a far better story, after all.
Infrastructure failures are boring, and our current political era is anything but boring.
Meanwhile, We the People, the ordinary, boring folk are doing advanced mathematical calculations each time we walk into the grocery store, all beginning with the question as to whether we can afford eggs this week or splurge on electricity.
Also of note, but boring as watching the paint dry when compared to the Reflecting Pool issue at hand: gas prices are descending in a nickel-and-dime fashion, but still too high most places and to most of us to hit the road to anywhere this summer.
But these concerns are nothing compared to the HORRIFYING possibility that tourists might gaze into a reflecting pool that is not sufficiently majestic. It’s all about priorities, folks.
And I can almost imagine Trump’s speech about said pool: “My fellow Americans, I know many of you skipped your annual physical because you couldn't afford it. I know you've been stretching hamburger meat with breadcrumbs since February. I know your rent went up again, but have you seen that reflecting pool? We're going to make it the greatest reflecting pool anyone has ever reflected in,” (insert thunderous applause here).
If We the People are distracted about who allegedly vandalized a reflecting pool, then we have less time to ask why food or medications cost so much, or why wages haven’t kept up the pace with expenses, or why it is that a trip to the ER carries the financial risk of purchasing a yacht.
It’s almost like a magician is at work – “Don't look at your grocery receipt. Look over here at the Antifa-created algae in the pool!”
And every minute spent chasing imaginary saboteurs is another minute not spent discussing procurement practices, accountability, or whether taxpayer dollars actually produced what taxpayers paid for. If someone received a lucrative contract without meaningful competition and delivered shoddy work, perhaps that's the scandal, but blaming mysterious political bogeymen is much easier than examining invoices.
That Reflecting Pool, which Trump claims has been victimized by “Criminal, Radical Left Vandals…that truly hate our Country,” as he stated on Truth Social, has served generations as a place of quiet contemplation and a reminder of national ideals and the burdens of preserving our seemingly fragile constitutional democratic republic.
These days, however, it has become something even more miraculous: an edifice capable of reflecting everything except for responsibility, and that is, perhaps, the most fitting reflection of all.
