Sorry China, you can’t hack a steakhouse

In Washington, you don’t need a satellite to find out who is raising money for whom. Just look at the co-host list of an invitation to any fundraiser. And if the Chinese really want to get a look at where the power decisions get made, send an undercover eater to see who’s dining with whom at the Four Seasons for breakfast, Tosca for lunch, and the Palm or Oceanaire for dinner. And here’s a secret in Washington the Chinese haven’t hacked into yet: Actual decision-makers will meet with the actual experts and affected parties in order to make as informed a decision as possible. Shhhh. Don’t tell the Chinese.

Right now, it’s a good bet that the Chinese hackers are sifting through millions of emails in which tons of people are saying sensible things, making all sorts of predictions, and maybe even revealing what they think about how and why a particular decision was made. But often the talk isn’t connected to any particular decision — and it isn’t always well-informed. Washington is a cacophonic symphony of gigantic plans, dueling facts, eager ideals, and petty pursuits. To understand it, you have to be able to hear it all at the same time and also understand that the music never stops. Beijing will blow a circuit board trying to make sense of all this.

Maybe the Chinese don’t understand that a literal transcript of what is said in Washington does not tell the real story. It never has. It never will. People are always saying something here. All we do is talk. At any given time you can find someone saying anything you want to hear — on any given side of any issue — from missile defense to agricultural policy. That doesn’t happen in Beijing. And that’s part of the reason it’s so easy to be busy and yet so hard to be productive in D.C. It takes time to know who is relevant to a decision, to understand that person’s history and how he or she approaches an issue. That’s extremely important and not always easy to figure out.