Photo by aimster215

In today’s Roll Call, reporter Emily Yehle observes the first anniversary of the Capitol Visitor Center, the 580,000-square-foot foyer to the legislative branch of the United States of America. Opened a year ago to the tune of $621 million, the Capitol expansion has quietly changed the way that visitors interact with the Congress — transforming it in a way that would prompt even a heartless Hill suit to reflect on what a shame it is.

Before the advent of the CVC, a visit to the Capitol meant a tour for taxpaying citizens guided by hapless interns who would straight up lie to them. Just bald-faced, outrageous, entirely untrue claims about the nation’s history and its legislative process. Neither interns nor tourists were any worse for it, as neither interns nor tourists represent gifted classes. The Georgetown Independent ran a story last year by a one-time legislative aide who fessed up to all the lies he never realized that he constantly told to Illinois constituents: that the Statue of Liberty could fit inside the Capitol dome, that John Quincy Adams used the acoustics of Statuary Hall to spy on House opponents, that Thomas Jefferson bribed artist John Trumbull to portray Jefferson stepping on John Adams’s toes in the painting depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence. All the untruthiest of untruths. Jesus Christ, Illinois, you believe that?