I first arrived in Washington, D.C., on a winter day when the wind was whipping clouds across an icy blue sky. I was staying with a friend who lived near the Capitol, and I walked over to see it. When I saw that great ribbed dome gleaming white, silhouetted against the bright blue sky, I got tears in my eyes. Still do every once in awhile when I see it – but then I still get a lump in my throat when I see the flag flying outside a polling site on Election Day. You would think that thirty years in Washington and stints working for two U.S. senators would have cured me of this sort of thing, but they have not. I am a truly hopeless case.

     You’ll find below information on Washington institutions important to all Americans, including sites that tell children about the workings of our government.

     This archive does not get into partisan politics. Instead I lay out for you, in as evenhanded a manner as possible, the tools for learning the political facts behind the rumors.

     Using the websites in the section called “Watching The 111th Congress,” you can gather more in-depth legislative information than ever before in U.S. history. In fact, a curious ordinary citizen can gather more information than even a person high up in Congress would have known thirty years ago. But you’ll have to work at it, because the U.S. political system is extremely complex, and thousands of bills are introduced into each Congress.

     When I first went to work in the Senate, I innocently told someone in the office that I wanted to “learn how a bill goes through Congress.” I heard a loud snicker from behind a partition. “No two bills ever go through Congress the same way,” said the guy behind the partition. It was the voice of experience, and he was right.

     If you don’t want to dig deep but would like a relatively quick, light approach to politics, try the section on “Checking The Facts, The Polls, And The Rumors.” It will help you separate fact from fantasy with speed and dispatch.