Once upon a time, there was a fairy kingdom that lived inside a place called The Beltway and was surrounded on all four sides by a land called America. The Beltway was aligned with another kingdom called Manhattan, inhabited by disembodied heads that spoke from the walls of bars, and with yet another closed kingdom called Hollywood, the abode of half-educated narcissists. These kingdoms were in eternal political syzygy and spoke not with the people of the surrounding lands, of whom they knew nothing.