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INTERNS, LIKE A FIELD OF black-eyed Susans in bloom, appear in Washington each summer. They are impossible to miss: short haircuts, dress shirts and khakis, red ties and blue blazers for the young men; up-dos, floral-print summer dresses, and sandals for the young women. All share the same wide and bright smiles, eager-to-please expressions, and guileless confidence in happy futures. "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem / Appareled in celestial light," wrote Wordsworth. Clearly he never had to fix a printer jam.
Having been both intern and employer, I sympathize with the undergraduates and newly minted bachelors of arts who alight in the city for these sunny, muggy, stormy months. Interns get a bad rap. The few who are arrogant, self-important, incompetent, ignorant, and on occasion criminal do not represent the many who are diligent, responsible, inquisitive, and kind. They are simply more memorable.
In Washington, we tend to stereotype and condemn interns for behavior that is commonplace among serious, "adult" professionals. For every intern who, as Bertie Wooster might say, gets a little "tight" at happy hour, there are several congressmen (and umpteen journalists) who do the same. For every short-term employee who drops the name of his boss and his boss's V.I.P. friends, there is a full-time staffer who's just gotten off the phone with Jared, Bibi, Chuck, or Jake.
For every summer fellow who, when he returns to college, continues to use the company's Nexis account, there is a high-level FBI official who meddles in a presidential election. For each of the interns at the Weekly Standard who would ask how often the magazine came out, there are presidents who can't remember the number of states in the Union. The misfits and dolts and close-talkers are...