Pining Away

Nobody has asked the tree, which might find it an intolerable honor, but a Shasta red fir from the Goose Nest Ranger District in the Klamath National Forest has been fingered as the official Capitol Christmas tree. Paul Pincus, the Capitol’s landscape architect, chose the 150-year-old silver tip from a forest near Medicine Lake, the first Capitol tree from west of the Mississippi. Like the deficit, the tree is bigger in the real world than it will appear in Washington: Only the top 60 of its 110 feet will be shipped to the nation’s capital. The rest of the tree will be sliced into plaques and mementos by a Siskiyou County citizens’ group. You’ve got to hand it to Congress: They may not be able to pass a budget on schedule, but five whole months before Christmas, they’ve already picked out their tree.