The Roughed Grouse Goes to Washington

Last Wednesday a friend of mine had some personal business to take care of in Washington, D.C., and asked me to come along for the ride.

Seeing as I had nothing better to do other than look for a job, I agreed to make the trip. I’m about as a politically active as the next guy, which means, I watch cable news, too.

But visiting the nation’s capitol sounded like one of those fashionable things “to do before you die,” along with scaling Macchu Picchu and listening to The Beatles’ “White Album.”

Two down, one to go.

We arrived in Washington a little past noon. My friend went off to tend to business, cutting me loose in the capitol. Now that I was here, what to do?

A famous Washington insider once told a reporter played by Robert Redford to “follow the money.” Good advice. But I had only about three hours to kill, and I didn’t want to spend it bringing down the presidency. (Though I could have if I wanted to - editors take note.)

Instead, I decided to follow the people. As I walked the streets I listened for the sounds of protest. On Pennsylvania Avenue I found my mission: A crowd had assembled on the west lawn of the Capitol building. But what were they protesting: High unemployment? Higher taxes? "The Paul Reiser Show"?    

Armed with my reporter’s instincts, a notebook, a pen, a cellphone-camera, another notebook, what’s this, a Sony Microcassette-Corder M-560V, and a press pass, I made my way into the throng of demonstrators.

What’s that you say? A press pass? Yes, I usually travel with a press pass, even if I’m just going to the store for toilet paper and almond milk. You never know when a big news story might hit. Plus, it’s a great way to get to the front of the line: “Excuse me, but I’m working on a very important story and I have a deadline in 10 minutes. Let me through.”

Abuse of press credentials? No more so than Anderson Cooper calling himself a journalist.

As I walked across the lawn of the Capitol I could see a flurry of placards, banners and yellow T-shirts proclaiming MY MEDICAID MATTERS. Ah, so that’s what the sign with the arrow I passed on the sidewalk meant: “MY MEDICAID MATTERS rally this way.” Clearly, my reporter’s instincts were spot on.

Walking toward me was a man in a gray suit who looked important until I realized it was Dennis Kucinich. The congressman from Ohio was in a hurry as he was next to speak. I knew I should have gone to a museum.

But once he took the stage, Kucinich proved to be an effective speaker; at least he knew his audience.

“Here in Washington, we’ve looked at Medicare and Medicaid and we have people actually talking about reducing the benefits, but we are not going to stand for that. No cuts! We’re here because your Medicaid matters. We need to make sure we make a strong statement that they can hear all the way to other end of Pennsylvania Avenue there at the White House that the White House knows that just because you want to put more taxes on the rich which is a good thing it’s not right to tell the poor people that they’re gonna have to pay more because they don’t have anymore to give!”

Here he finally paused for a breath, while the crowd cheered.

I turned off my Sony Microcassette-Corder M-560V and took out a pen and one of my notebooks. At the top of a page I wrote, “Medicaid,” and mourned my choice not to become a Chippendales dancer in Las Vegas.

I mean Medicaid is not exactly a “sexy” issue, like gay marriage or gun control. Still, it is important enough that all of these people, many of them in wheelchairs, came out on a gray muggy afternoon to feel counted.

Important enough for Kent Reilly and his wife DJ Jones-Reilly to travel here from their home in Gaithersburg, MD. Reilly, 55 years old, says he came to the rally because the antipsychotic drugs he takes daily to treat his schizoaffective disorder cost him more than $30,000 a year.

He has Medicare to defray some of the cost, but, he says, because he is married, he is not eligible for Medicaid.

“It’s a shame, those of us who are handicapped or have a mental illness, society can no longer afford to have us around,” he says.

Suddenly, I am handed a press release from a woman holding a clipboard. She wants to know who I’m with and what am I doing here.

Another advantage to wearing a press pass is that it attracts nosy press flaks. This one though ends up being very likeable. She tells me that on Monday she and about 50 other people were arrested after storming the offices of House Republicans Jeb Hensarling and Dave Camp. Evidently, Hensarling and Camp are members of a “super-committee” that threaten to make further cuts to Medicaid than the $72 billion President Obama touted last week in his deficit reduction plan.

It’s rare in today’s political climate to find an issue that places both Republicans and Obama in the same crosshairs. Maybe after all this Medicaid thing has legs. At least it has outlaws, as my friendly press flak can attest.

She leaves me alone to read the press release.

“Stay out of trouble,” I call after her, but she already had her clipboard set on a new target. It seems the MY MEDICAID MATTERS rally was organized by ADAPT, described as “a national disability rights direct action group.”

The press release quotes a man named Bruce Darling of Rochester, NY: “People are sick and tired of being used as pawns by politicians with ‘austerity fever,’” he says. “Our lives are at stake as well as the livelihoods of our support workers.”

I look around at the people assembled on the lawn. I see men and women of all races, young and old, in wheelchairs, missing limbs, some appearing even less fortunate.

No doubt they are engaged in a life-or-death struggle. I wouldn’t want their problems. Neither would you. And, I’m afraid, neither does Washington.

Kent Reilly was right, it’s a shame. Politics makes strange bedfellows and cowards of us all. We look to leaders to make us feel better, party lines are drawn, and we march to the beat of our collective drumming; but we always end up stuck in the same blind alleys, never taking off our dark shades, while our leaders drive by in motorcades waving to us behind tinted bullet-proof glass.

Maybe I’m being too cynical, an easy fallback for jaded news types. I decided to stick around long enough to hear Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa speak.

“This is one of the great civil rights causes of our time. Medicaid may not mean much to hedge fund managers on Wall Street or to those who have a lot, but Medicaid matters to everyone here today,” he said to a roar from the crowd. “So my job here now is to stop the radicals, the ideologues in the House who say the best way to balance the budget and cut the deficit is to take away those things that benefit the most vulnerable people in our society. We’re here to say, no you’re not!”

I’m going to keep an eye on this issue, but I’ve heard enough politicking for one day. Excuse me, which way is the Smithsonian?