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If, as Karl Marx memorably put it, history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce, what are we to make of Marion Barry's second "return" to DC politics?
(DCist, latest arm of the Gothamist keiretsu, will be following Barry's hijinx. For some amusing background reading, the Post has a convenient compendium of their coverage of the four-term mayor of our fair city)
I mean, in addition to the obvious crack pipe and "bitch set me up" jokes.
Posted by: mike on September 15, 2004 04:02 AMMy favorite story about DC under Marion Barry:
When I was 18 - and looked 12 - I went with some upperclassmen to Maggie's, a bar and pizzeria in Tenleytown. I was very nervous, as the drinking age was 21 and I had never tried to flaunt it in a bar before. But I was served, and wound up talking to two girls who were sitting at the bar next to me. The girls were wearing field hockey uniforms emblazoned with the name of the high school next to the bar. I think they were drinking whiskey sours.
See, under Marion Barry, if you owned a bar and contributed a certain amount to his campaigns, you were immune from Alcoholic Beverages Commission oversight. You could pretty much do whatever you wanted.
Posted by: Sterling on September 15, 2004 04:39 AM...or maybe Wilson High School students are alcoholics. Although I don't think that was limited to the Barry years.
One of the turning points of my youth was when i was in fifth grade, and there was the Mayor of the City (I grew up in Arlington) on TV, flipping the bird to some hecklers (and a media photog). I really wanted to find a shot of that to grace the post, but my Google skills (or G00g1 5K!11z) were not up to it.
Appearantly, though, when a reporter asked, "Is that a political comment?", the mayor replied, "No, it's a political promise!"
Posted by: mike on September 15, 2004 04:49 AMActually, the girls were from Sidwell Friends.
Posted by: Sterling on September 15, 2004 05:52 AMShocking behavior for quaker girls.
This is just a case of DC being cutting edge in what constitutes a grace period after 'youthful indiscretions' --for Clinton it was not inhaling in university 25 years ago, for Bush it was snorting all over Texas 20 years ago, for Barry it was (allegedly, potentially) injecting crack three years ago.
Posted by: charles on September 15, 2004 01:16 PMah, well, apart from the injecting bit. mummy would be proud I'm so ignorant of such things.
Posted by: charles on September 15, 2004 01:39 PM"Injecting" crack? You mean smoking crack, right?
Posted by: Sterling on September 15, 2004 02:48 PMNo wonder it never had an effect on Charles.
Oh, and wouldn't the third time be a tragicomedy? Shakespeare's thought of everything.
Posted by: Stefan Geens on September 15, 2004 10:47 PMCrack is mostly sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) Sodium bicarbonqaqte, I'm amazed to find, is injected into the blood to counter numerous problems. But I'm guessing that several grams of it at one time would be very, very bad (like, fatally) for you.
If cocaine was cheaper, more people would probably consume cocaethylene.
Posted by: Sterling on September 15, 2004 11:23 PMThe Washington City Paper has an interesting article [sorry, link only good for a week] on the Titanic voyage that is Marion Barry's comeback:
"I remember Marion as this vibrant persona radiating with charisma," Pannell will say later. "Now to see him as a shadow of himself....He says Ward 8 needs a fighter. We do. How can he fight?"
But as an article that will drive Sterling nuts with casual and cavalier references to corruption, it's not bad.
Posted by: mike on September 17, 2004 09:32 PM