Dale McFeatters: Congressional horse-trading, out in the open

It was I, of course, babbling directions and advice and even escorting the tourists a few blocks to see them to the right subway stop. It was my way of saying thanks for being here.

I never thought I'd miss the tourists, but I did and still do since they're not back in their old numbers. So does the Washington Convention and Tourism Corp., but it misses some tourists more than others.

The WCTC is running an ad campaign to attract upscale tourists to the capital under the ambiguous and slightly ominous slogan, "Make It Your Own." We already have ample numbers of lobbyists and special interests trying to make too many things their very own by lavishing cash on members of Congress.

The WCTC says that Washington's tourists are predominantly college-educated, upper-income women. I'll take their word for it, but in my own experience the capital's visitors are either hormonally amped teenagers here on a class trip or large clots of madly photographing Japanese following a guide with an upraised umbrella. But then I never forced a lost tourist to fill out a questionnaire in return for directions to the White House.

I worry about the school kids because the explanations they get make the city seem so dry, airless and serious -- and it's not. I was passing through the Capitol Rotunda with a senior congressional aide when a guide began explaining to a group: "How A Bill Becomes Law." The staffer turned to the students and said, "When you find out, come back and tell us, because we'd like to know, too."

The problem with Washington and the way it works is that so much of the passion, excitement and wheeling and dealing -- the horse-trading where a simple idea goes in one end of the process and the Department of Homeland Security emerges from the other -- takes place out of sight.

But Congress has rectified that, although inadvertently.

A visitor to the Capitol quickly notices that the serene, sylvan east plaza has been replaced by a hole, a huge unsightly hole that one day will be completely filled in with taxpayers' dollars -- metaphorically speaking.

The hole is a wonderful example of how Congress really works.

The idea began back in the 1970s as a simple underground visitors center to handle the growing number of tourists and to display some of the Capitol artifacts. Projected cost: $71 million.

But, just as a bill becomes law, the lawmakers started adding more and more stuff to the project -- a cafeteria, two theaters, exhibition space and gift shops for 4,000 or so visitors, plus an auditorium, offices, briefing rooms, TV studios and escape tunnels for members of the House and Senate.

The size grew -- it's now due to come in around 580,000 square feet -- and so did the cost, to $265 million, then to $303 million, then to $373.5 million, and now people are talking about $500 million before it's all over. Oh, and the completion date has been pushed back a year.

I hope visitors to the new center will ask the one question that's been bothering me since I do worry about the tourists.

The center will double as a shelter for members of Congress in the event of a crisis, attack or other disaster. If so, what happens to the 4,000 visitors patiently waiting to see the Capitol when the members of Congress need the space? Do they get pushed out the door to face whatever's out there -- rampaging aliens, clouds of poison gas, blood-maddened members of the investor class driven berserk by the injustice of the capital gains tax?

I would think that whether tourists, upscale or otherwise, return to Washington in their old numbers rides on the answer.