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Something dark and flat was swaying gently against the floor of the Reflecting Pool as I strolled past the monuments on Thursday morning. At first glance, it looked like a small raft of seaweed. But when I stuck my arm into the slime-green water and held the object to the light, it revealed itself as something far more evocative: a giant flake of Donald Trump’s precious sealant, which was supposed to turn the pool “American flag blue.”

One week after the president’s paint job wrapped up and the pool was refilled, the material is already coming loose from the concrete bottom of the Reflecting Pool. Where it’s not peeling off around the edges, it’s covered in chartreuse algae. As the pool has gone from blue to green over the past few weeks, the sight has offered an inescapable metaphor for the Trump administration’s ineptitude, profligate spending, careless meddling with iconic federal properties, and general bad taste.

“It looks terrible,” said Cande, a first-time D.C. visitor in town from California. Gesturing toward the water, she said the project was classic Trump: “Touches something that’s been in the United States, for us, for zillions of years, and just before the 250th anniversary, this is what we have.”

The Department of the Interior has launched a frantic effort to fix the mess. With July Fourth and America 250 events approaching, tourists are flooding into town to see the sights. In between the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial, instead of a solemn stretch of water........

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