You've heard the NASCAR shots story, right? House Homeland Security Committee staffers advised aides visiting two NASCAR tracks (for some sort of mass event public health study) to make sure their immunizations were current. Robin Hayes, a Republican who represents the district that includes Lowe's Motor Speedway just outside Charlotte, complained that his district was being treated like a third-world country (or something like that). Lots of hooting and hollering ensued.

Hayes resides in a solidly Republican district, and yet he won re-election by a mere 329 votes last November. He's riding this scandal for the cheap publicity. So are the other Republicans in the chorus, who appear to share the delusion that NASCAR fans will actually stop off in their home districts between races next fall and take the time to vote.

Okay, that's a cheap shot. But this is all very silly. While it is always advisable to have your immunizations up to date if you travel a lot, there's not a whole lot to fear from a trip to Concord, N.C. Talladega, Alabama? You'd never catch me dead there--you can't buy sex toys or high gravity beer in Alabama--but I figure even Talladega isn't that much more dangerous health-wise than the Adams-Morgan district in D.C. on a given Friday night.

People who live outside the Beltway don't understand that Congress is run by a professional cadre of young people who live, breathe and sleep politics. Most of them live in D.C. or elsewhere within the Beltway. They don't understand things like children, poverty or substandard education. They're smart, assured and (so I'm told) amazingly horny.

These staffers have a belief in the power of government, regardless of political persuasion. One staffer I talked to just after last year's elections couldn't fathom the massive public antipathy to the NSA spying program. "The government has been doing this forever," she said. "It's not a big deal."

She's right. It's not a big deal to people who know about the programs and trust the people doing the spying. And these kids, Republicans and Democrats alike, trust the government. Why? Because they are the government.

Our elected representatives? Tools, most of them. A surprisingly large number of the male reps and senators rock D.C. Gary Condit-style, roaming freely with girlfriends and occasionally stopping by to vote. Some of them are a bit more serious about their jobs and don't let their personal lives interfere with their jobs--much, anyway. But you'd be surprised by the stupidity quotient of many Congressmen and Senators.

And they don't, by and large, know a damned thing about their districts and the people who live in them. Robin Hayes, the aforementioned North Carolina rep, was born in Concord (home of Lowe's Motor Speedway), but I'd bet my net worth (somewhere in the low four figures) that he's never attended a NASCAR race as a fan. He's one of those "pro-business" types, and while I'm sure he's courted the money of NASCAR big wigs and the many drivers who have set up shop in his district, I doubt he could name more than two of the drivers in the current Nextel Cup "chase."

Once you come to Washington, you get inculcated into its culture. You pick your steakhouse, and you stick to it--kinda like those Princeton eating clubs. You don't hang out with anyone other than your current lay, since all you've got time to do is stop by the office, chat up a reporter (if you need some press), cast a few votes and review the details of next weekend's fundraisers. If you're lucky, you actually read a few of the bills during your weekly travel time to and from D.C. If you read really fast, maybe you polish off some solid genre fiction. Mysteries and spy novels are always at the top of the list.

But the real disconnect is the one I mentioned first: People in the government believe in government and the ability of the government to do good. Even those politicians who get elected by slamming the government as a tool of the devil (or worse) believe in government. People outside the Beltway see the government as a menace. And the further you get from the Beltway, the bigger the menace seems to become. Members of Congress travel abroad on junkets all the time. But, by and large, they don't step out of their bubbles and wander the United States as ordinary citizens. I don't blame them. They might lose their faith in government, and as a consequence, their faith in themselves.

The thing about is that our government couldn't function without the staffers, that corps of professional political junkies. Without them, even the morons who made an extra effort to encourage vaccinations before visiting NASCAR venues, our country would fall into chaos in short order. Imagine the United States without schools, a functioning banking system or Social Security. Or any number of other federal programs. Nightmare is a gross understatement.

But hey, this whole shot flap does make for great political theater. And when nothing else important is happening (Al who? What Peace Prize?), it's always fun to see what's playing over on the side stage.

Like most Americans, Jon Worley thinks the world of all his elected representatives. The others? They're all tools, man.