Stockholm, District of Columbia

Washington, DC. Capitol of the free world. Seat of Government. The most powerful city in the most powerful country on earth.

One may expect a city with such a lofty pedigree to be highly organized and tightly run, setting an example of the rest of the country (if not the world) to follow. The problems within should be the type of issues other cities and towns would love to have. Certainly, such a city should not be a blithering cauldron of incompetence, ripe and deserving for derisive humor, with naked corruption at every turn.

And yet, that is exactly what DC is; a festering blister of disorganization and indifference, the very antithesis of efficiency and common sense.

Don't get me wrong; I love this city. It has a beauty unmatched, a charm unrivaled, a pulse unduplicated. One the one hand, it is every bit the modern, cosmopolitan polis; restaurants, nightlife, hustle and occasionally bustle, populated by the very important. Yet, it somehow retains its origins as a sleepy southern hamlet, never coming close to being New York. And we Washingtonians love it for that.

We only wish it could function on some other plane besides that of the borderline banana republic.

Am I talking about politics? Sure. You bet. But perhaps not the politics of which you imagine. Someone once said that "all politics are local." Well, that's no doubt true, and the local politics of Washington DC are, in a word, ghastly.

It is little wonder that Congress and the Senate are in no hurry whatsoever to grant representation to our city. If past performance is an indication of future returns - and in politics it certainly is - then why would anyone grant more power, authority and autonomy to the District of Columbia?

Any attempt to give DC representation in Congress will so easily be shot down in the back room meetings on Capitol. All it would take would be for a single Senator to utter two simple words:

Congressman Barry.

Did you just get an image of Edvard Munch's The Scream in your head? You're not alone. Just imagine Marion Barry having real political power on a national level. Marion Barry, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Yikes!

Of course, he wouldn't last too long. In order to get that kind of mojo on Capitol Hill, you need to be highly competent, not just corrupt. And "highly competent" and "Marion Barry" should really never be in the same sentence.

Is the election of Barry where it went all wrong for local DC politics? It's hard to say. Wait. No it isn't. Yes, Barry's election marks the beginning of the decent into utter ineptitude. Without going into a lengthy dissertation on Washington's governmental changes in the last 40 years, the District of Columbia was essentially a federal colony up until 1973, when the Home Rule Act passed in Congress. Finally, DC residents had a government that was of the people, by the people and for the people, which seemed like a good idea at the time. The citizenry elected the aptly named Walter Washington, the first black mayor of a major metropolitan city. By all accounts, Mayor Washington was a decent, honest, hard-working man who capably ran the town, and most importantly, did not smoke crack.

Enter Marion Barry, who "started out okay" as people like to say, but then became corrupted by the power of his position. One year after being shot by Muslim terrorists, Barry was elected as DC's second mayor in 1978, using the sympathy and notoriety of the shooting to his full advantage. His ties to the early civil rights movement in the south didn't hurt.

Again, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately, his election ushered in a freefall into disarray from which the city is still trying desperately to recover. This column is far to limited in scope to accurately and completely categorize his failures, but in short, DC's basic services and infrastructure rapidly began falling apart. Barry and his cronies were almost unimaginably corrupt (two deputy mayors and a dozen other top aides ended up in prison for extortion, fraud and misappropriation of funds into their pockets); Washington had double the number of government workers per public-housing unit as the comparable cities of Detroit and Baltimore, but 20 percent of the public housing units were not fit to live in. There was a seven-year wait for a DC-run apartment. More appointees were caught with their hand in the till (while simultaneously doing a fraction of what their job entailed) then remained unscathed by incitement.

Streets were nearly un-drivable in many places due to potholes the size of Montana. Water mains ruptured on a regular basis, and stayed broken for weeks and even months. When asked about this problem, the Mayor for Life, as he had become known, replied, "People blame me because these water mains break, but I ask you, if the water mains didn't break, would it be my responsibility to fix them then?" Uh … gee Mayor, you got me there.

It wasn't long until, under Barry's astute leadership, Washington DC, USA became known as the murder capitol of the world. Not a problem though!

"If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very low crime rate," said Barry.

Whew! That makes me feel better. I fell secure knowing that after my brains get blown out, my car radio will still be embedded in my console.

You want more Barry gems? I know I do. I can't get enough of them.

On his popularity: "I am clearly more popular than Reagan. I am in my third term. Where's Reagan? Gone after two! Defeated by George Bush and Michael Dukakis, no less."

On legal matters: "What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?"

On a drunken night spent at a strip bar: "First, it was not a strip bar, it was an erotic club. And second, what can I say? I'm a night owl."

On ... err ... not sure what: "The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather."

And of course, the most famous Barry quote of 'em all: "Bitch set me up!"

She sure did, Mayor. She made you put that crack pipe to your lips and take a hit. DC suddenly became the number one source for excellent late-night talk show material. It was embarrassing to live here.

Little wonder that we had such problems - it all starts at the top, and the top man was hittin' the pipe like Tyrone Biggums.

All of which, in turn, makes DC a really good crack town.

Want to sell crack? DC is the place. You might get shot, but as long as you make a minimum effort, you'll sell all the crack your little old heart desires without being bothered by those pesky police that other towns have. Why? Because the Mayor set the example, for one. But more importantly, there's no money in stopping crack dealers, at least not on the surface. In fact, it costs money to try and put them away - lots and lots of money. And it's a very dangerous business. So if you are looking to change careers, come to Washington and get into the crack selling industry.

But while you're here, don't even think about parking illegally. Because that's where the money is.

Make no mistake; under Barry, DC became financed through the pockets of law abiding citizens who are trying to pick up their dry cleaning and make the unforgivable mistake of parking in a loading zone for 79 seconds. Or, they happened to have four minutes left on their parking meter, but the meter maid figured that they probably won't make it back in time, and she's behind on her quota anyway. And what are you supposed to do when you see a sign like this one, just down the street from where I live?

DC Government at its finest, right there.

From what I can tell, the basic strategy of the Barry administration, which is still very much in place today (even though Barry hasn't been Mayor for the last seven years), is: let the criminals do as they please, and bilk honest, hard-working people via their motor vehicles - just try and get a used car registered here if you don't believe me. Barry's people remain quite ensconced in the DC government, and the culture of fleecing sincere people with car issues has gone nowhere; in fact, it's as strong as ever. My $500 in parking tickets this year alone will attest to that.

The question is now thus: what can we do about making DC a real city with competent government that doesn't wantonly bamboozle its residents? Well, the best thing to happen to Washington DC in the history of Home Rule was, without any doubt, Mayor Anthony Williams. Through his leadership over the last eight years, DC slowly wrenched itself from utter buffoonery to some modicum of legitimacy. While many of the problems and attitudes still remain, Mayor Williams was at least a start.

The next question is: why was Mayor Williams so successful? The answer is simple - he is not a home-grown DC native. Williams went to Yale, served as CFO for the USDA, and bounced around various positions in various cities. Ironic, isn't it? Here we have DC clamoring for neighborhood control of its destiny, and it took an outsider to get from completely FUBAR'd to mildly SNAFU'd.

There is a lesson here, and it needs to be taken one step further. Tony Williams announced he will not seek a third term, and all his potential successors are home grown (read: potentially like Barry). This can only lead to taking two steps back without the requisite step forward. We need another outsider. And why stop inside the border? Let's go outside the country.

Specifically Sweden.

That's right. Fire the entire staff of the DC government, and replace them with friendly, efficient Swedes.

Oh what a wonderful world that would be. Instead of one grimy vehicle inspection station that takes two hours to penetrate (only to find out that your car has failed inspection because of a faulty knock sensor, and you have to get it repaired at one of three stations that are open from 9 - 5, M - F, and it will take 7 - 10 business days to fix one tiny thing that will cost $2000), there would be several spotless stations conveniently located throughout the city. If repairs were needed to your car, a fix-it shop would be next store, and you could get your repairs done in 45 minutes and be on your way. If you own a Saab or Volvo, make that a half hour.

When you enter the DMV, hot blondes greet you, smile, and say, "Hello, what can I do for you?" in excellent, easy-to-understand English. You walk out 15 minutes later, done and done, returning the smiles. Doop dee dopp dee doop!

There would be no need to ticket people relentlessly; as now, all the tax dollars go exactly where they are supposed to go; embezzlement rate drops from 30 percent to almost nothing. And it takes one Swede to do the work of five DC natives, so costs are reduced dramatically.

You may ask; where are all the old government workers going to go? How will they earn a living? My answer: who cares? They had their chance to run a city, and they screwed it up nearly beyond repair.

In 18 months, Washington DC would be transformed into a true Capitol city. And I'd be driving around $2,500 richer.

Evan Redmon is a freelance writer and editor. He has lived in Washington, DC for most of his life, with seven years of college down the drain in Madison, WI and four and a half years of doing nothing in particular in Boulder, CO. He has visited 39 of the 50 states in the Union (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) and can be reached at evanredmon@yahoo.com.