Back in 1951, the Italian government presented the US with a bunch of very sturdy looking horse statues. The National Park Service decided that these would make a great decoration to put around the Lincoln Memorial. And I’m sure from Lincoln’s point of view they are very nice. But here’s the thing I noticed the other day; all of the horse statues face inward, towards the Lincoln Memorial. If you are coming over the Memorial Bridge from Virginia, the first thing you are greeted with as you enter the city is a giant bronzed horse’s ass on a pedestal.

Now I realize that most of us DC regulars are perfectly happy showing all those giant tourist buses the back end of a horse, but geez, we’ve got foreign dignitaries coming over that bridge. Is that really the first image of our Nation’s Capitol we want them to have?