quiddities and agonies of the ruling class, DC edition - a rolling washington post thread

A cunning plan:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

Damage control!:

The Washington Post's executive editor said today he is "appalled" by a plan to charge lobbyists as much as $250,000 for off-the-record gatherings at the home of the paper's publisher -- with Obama administration officials, members of Congress and the paper's reporters and editors -- and insisted that the newsroom will not participate.

"It suggests that access to Washington Post journalists was available for purchase," Brauchli said in an interview. The proposal "promises we would suspend our usual skeptical questioning because it appears to offer, in exchange for sponsorships, the good name of The Washington Post."

Brauchli was responding to fliers, circulated by the paper's parent company, offering an "intimate and exclusive Washington Post Salon, an off-the-record dinner and discussion at the home of CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth." The fliers, which said participants would be charged $25,000 to sponsor a single salon and $250,000 to underwrite an annual series of 11 sessions, were reported this morning by Politico.

"We do not offer access to the newsroom for money," Brauchli said. "We just are not in that business."

'skeptical questioning'

w t f

Ezra K was not thrilled.

if that's not enough to utterly demolish a newspaper's credibility, what is?

washington times in "more respectable dc rag" shockah

Pissed off (lobbyist?) guy in comments to Klein:

"Get off your holier than thou pulpit man. I hate to break this to you but you are a lobbyist. You are essentially being paid to lobby via this form of media for your various causes. Lobbyists allow people to focus on raising their kids and walking their dogs instead of worrying about the latest political power grab. Newspapers also lobby the Government and perform a similar filtering function for the population at large. So why don't newspapers like lobbyists? Could it be self-interest? Greed? Or more plainly put; they just don't like the competition.

yeah so take that you fake fuckin hippie

i forgot a close quote there, he dint call him an ffh

A strategic decision:

Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.

"Absolutely, I'm disappointed," Weymouth, the chief executive of Washington Post Media, said in an interview. "This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren't vetted. They didn't represent at all what we were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom."

Lol, a classic "sorry we betrayed our actual intentions so brazenly" apology.

And now the ombudsman:

For a storied newspaper that cherishes its reputation for ethical purity, this comes pretty close to a public relations disaster.

Politico reported this morning that The Post has been soliciting lobbyists to pay from $25,000 to $250,000 to underwrite off-the-record “salons” at the home of publisher Katharine Weymouth that would provide access to administration and congressional leaders and the paper’s reporters and editors.

The story, accurately reported by Politico reporter Mike Allen, is based on a flier being circulated by a new marketing arm of The Post that has been created to host conferences and events.

The problem: The Post often decries those who charge for access to public officials. This raised the specter of a money-losing newspaper doing the same thing -- and charging for access to its own reporters and editors as well.

Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli says he never saw the flier and would not have approved it. “I had no idea,” he said.

The Post scrambled to limit damage and immediately canceled the first scheduled event.

Brauchli immediately sent a staff note saying: “We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors in inviolable.”

Weymouth is out of town.

i just want to know how many human skulls had been ordered for the wine. well, that and what denomination of bill was being planned for the lighting of the cigars.

is it me or is the phrase "a storied newspaper" kinda awkward

adios, 'mouthpiece theater'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/05/AR2009080502394.html?hpid=moreheadlines

"I don't think the series worked as they intended," Brauchli said. "It was meant to be funny and insightful and translate the superb journalism Chris and Dana do in print and online into a new format."

Spot the deliberate mistake:

"Mouthpiece Theater" was designed as a sendup of pompous punditry, with Milbank, the paper's Washington Sketch columnist, and Cillizza, a White House correspondent who writes The Fix blog

score one for nico pitney i guess

Cillizza agreed that the plug should be pulled, saying: "We'd hoped the self-deprecating humor of me and the irreverent humor of Dana would combine to make something funny and interesting and on the news. It wound up not working. . . . Ultimately it wasn't funny."

i don't think "ultimately" is the right word there. "initially"'? "thoroughly"? "manifestly"?

'When Mr. Snyder found out about it,' Donovan said, 'he made it clear to me that that was priority number one.'

Cue Claude Rains shocked to find out about gambling etc.

I do like what this builds up to:

One of the things that gives the Redskins prestige is the team's waiting list, which goes back decades.

The general admission waiting list, which famously included Snyder before he bought the team a decade ago, is considered one of the Redskins' most valuable assets. It is held up by the team as a symbol of unwavering demand for Redskins tickets. The team has the highest season ticket-renewal rate in the NFL.

Bloggers, fans in online chat rooms and others have often expressed doubt that the list is as long as advertised, especially in recent years, as the team has gone through tough seasons and played only one postseason home game since winning the Super Bowl in 1992. In recent months, numerous people have contacted The Post and said they have been repeatedly solicited to buy Redskins season tickets, even though they did not sign up to be on the waiting list.

"Redskins are sold out -- in theory," said ASC's Greenberg. "This year, they sent letters to everybody on the lower level to add more tickets to their account. The Redskins have done a great job of keeping that aura that they're sold out."

Redskins officials defended the list but acknowledged that some people's names could be on it more than once. They invited a reporter to look at it. Located in a locked storage room, the list is a computer printout that occupies 16 binders kept in banker's boxes.

i've been thinking about that list since high school.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102102833.html

Cooper would answer questions only through messages sent to his Facebook account, which features a photo of a man in a striped polo shirt holding a champagne flute.

haha i thought of this thread when reading that

Makes me think of a DC thread (I think in the sandbox days) where one Friday all we did was post pictures from Capitol Club events and lol.

STYLE SECTION PUNCHUP

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/11/02/allen-v-roig-franzia-from-the-beginning/

Eyewitness reports from a coughstucker!

In the K Street corridor, a host of upscale clubs and lounges, such as Lima and Josephine, have opened up in the past few years. They cater to this demographic, with lines spilling into the street and lending downtown Washington a spring break-like atmosphere after business hours. Shadow Room, where customers can order a drink on their iPhone from the dance floor, is a particular favorite of the young rich from the outer fringes because it sits at 21st and K streets with easy access to Interstate 66.

The District had been thought of as conservative and stuffy, Lund said, but a host of young entrepreneurs, Obama administration staffers and ex-Wall Street types imported to help fix the financial system have kicked the city's energy "into hyper-drive."

One recent Friday evening, Shah and one of his business partners, Rajeev Subramanian, 28, hosted a bustling party at Josephine, where one of their young Montgomery County clients spent more than $2,000 at a reserve table, quaffing Dom Perignon and Cristal champagne.

About 3 a.m., they climbed into their cars for the wearying 45-minute drive back to Ashburn, where they share a townhouse decorated in bachelor-pad style, with an L-shaped couch and big-screen TVs.

Life in the suburbs can be isolating, Shah said. They don't know their neighbors.

But Shah, who also lives and works part of the week in Richmond, said he wouldn't have it any other way.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110604170_pf.html

"Shadow Room, where customers can order a drink on their iPhone from the dance floor, is a particular favorite of the young rich from the outer fringes because it sits at 21st and K streets with easy access to Interstate 66"

A mildly disconcerting juxtaposition of facts.

comments are a treat, of course
"I live in DC and would party solo at the Red Robin in Manassas before hanging with those clowns."

(xp) ^ haha yeah also I'm going to call BS on that claim entirely - Shadow Room is popular w/ that crowd because it was founded by outer fringe tech riche, not because it's 7 blocks closer out of a 30-mile drive.

http://img38.imagefra.me/img/img38/2/11/7/f_ca0um_5bb1872.jpg

Also can I point out that this is an actual photo from the actual article and not just a stock image they found with an unkind keyword search.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/12/04/ST2009120402037.html?sid=ST2009120402037

I love the bit about his buddies saying he shoulda bought the Browns.

"We have $11 trillion residential mortgages, $3 trillion commercial mortgages. Total $14 trillion. Five percent of that is $700 billion. A nice round number."

No wonder we're in trouble.

ah forget it, i'm illiterate as well as innumerate.

is that a british 'billion' joke

i liked the build your own shack in the mountains part of that story

i did too :-/

xxp, no it's a i lost the ability to focus and should go to bed joke

that was a cool article though!

cute dogs

He doesn't see anything out the window that he misses, except maybe Chipotle.

Dude PLEASE. You could have at least been missing the actually good Ethiopian food in DC, not fucking Chipotle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqB5kD2eWg

At this altitude, pressure builds to bursting. Minal's hand lotion oozes in her purse, the pretzel bags swell, and when Kashkari hacks a log, it explodes with pine-scented powder. The smell, he says, is "purifying."

who needs science when what you really need is a colorful metaphor for your subject's mental state

Paulson dry heaving

Camping cabin simplicity dogs nice OH NEVER MIND:

Neel Kashkari, the first head of the government's $700 billion financial rescue program, will join Pacific Investment Management Co. as a managing director and head of new investment initiatives, the company said Monday.

Pimco, one of the world's largest bond managers and a unit of Germany Allianz, said Kashkari will be based in its Newport Beach, Calif., office.

...welcome to OC?

i liked the build your own shack in the mountains part of that story

it must be nice to have the kind of money where you can afford to buy all that stuff and take a long vacation.

Sally Quinn's Washington Post Style section pieces on how Washingtonians (read elite well-connected political types) need to have more parties and need to follow her etiquette ideas at such parties make me laugh. She analyzes Official Washington parties from Kennedy to the present today:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/26/AR2010012603507.html

Oh Sally...

I get asked almost every day how Washington life has changed since the newcomers came to town. The answer is: not at all. In fact, it's probably duller than it's ever been. This is nobody's fault, per se, nor is it necessarily a bad thing. These are difficult times, and it's just the way it is.

Years ago, the city looked to the White House to set the social tone. Whatever style the president and first lady favored was the style adopted. The Kennedys enthralled the town with their youth, exuberance and glamour. They had round skirted tables at a state dinner, and suddenly everyone had round tables. The Johnsons came in with their down-home Texas barbecues and you couldn't go out at night without being served ribs and baked beans. It wasn't until Nixon that people started to do their own thing. He introduced U-shaped tables, like the Russians, and instructed the White House guards to wear imperial hats. Most of those close to the president (except for Henry Kissinger) were distanced from the establishment. Inevitably, hostility toward the White House grew.

Native Washingtonians began to rebel, coming up with their own style of entertaining

Yep, during those Kennedy sixties (Vietnam , civil rights, etc. but clearly per Sally less "difficult" than now), poor and segregated African-Americans in DC were busy saving bucks to get those Camelot style round tables just like the President.

In spite of the feathers she ruffled, Sally, at age 41, had achieved all she had set out to do. The only thing missing now was a child. In 1982, she gave birth to a son whose very name—Josiah Quinn Crowninshield Bradlee—connoted great expectations. When an interviewer from People magazine asked her if she wasn't concerned about Quinn's having two relatively old parents, she replied, “I think the advantages he'll have by having us as parents outweigh the disadvantages of our age.”

Ned that's basically the question that I want to ask 95% of the op-ed writers at all our national newspapers.

You are wise to think that.

“I think the advantages he'll have by having us as parents outweigh the disadvantages of our age.”

jfc @ this person if we can call her that

My cup of hate runneth over

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/14/AR2010061404977.html

Editorial bravely standing up for the rights of those who wish to use the Mall to film parts of Transformers 3.

The story line is, after all, a solid one, with its saga of the good Autobots vs. the evil Decepticons. The animated and film versions deal with teamwork, morality, underdogs and the corruptive pull of power.

is that by armond white

So compelling:

Dear Reader,

Find out what other Washington Post readers find informative, entertaining, inspiring, amusing, or educational.

Get The Most—our free, daily, afternoon e-newsletter delivering the day's most popular Post content directly to your inbox.

Most viewed articles
Most e-mailed articles
Most viewed photo galleries
Most popular live discussions
Click here to subscribe to The Most now, or visit washingtonpost.com/newsletters to manage your e-mail subscriptions.

Sincerely,
The Washington Post.

i would pay anything for that

You aim to get the most out of life.

richard cohen, the worst writer in the world, strikes again

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/10/time_to_forget_the_clarence_th.html

cohen's learned a lot from thomas - freeze out anyone who says you're an abusive personality and get your friends to trash her:

http://www.observer.com/node/40521

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111806659.html

A few of Foster's friends are hosting a "Four Loko tasting party" Saturday night, and one of the organizers visited several liquor stores Thursday afternoon to buy up more than 50 cans of the drink in all eight flavors. Chances are it won't be the only Four Loko party raging this weekend.

"It's the end of an era," said Joey Maier, 21, a junior at American. "This was the drink of the semester."

"It's the end of an era," said Joey Maier, 21, a junior at American. "This was the drink of the semester."

this says everything anyone ever needed to know about my generation

*nods head in shame*

five 20-somethings living in a Columbia Heights group house hatched a plan of their own: Anytime someone sees Four Loko for sale, buy as much as possible.

Based on the 20-somethings I know that live in Columbia Heights group houses, I'm pretty sure that "plan" has been in effect since Four Loko hit the market.

hahaha love this

...said Joey Maier, 21

...said Tom Grahsler, 26

...said Gerlach, who said he was 21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-the-secret-service-could-learn-from-drunken-sailors/2012/04/26/gIQAz0kzjT_story.html?hpid=z2

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/mattress-mayhem-the-tale-of-the-disobeying-dog-bed/2013/04/28/725087e6-adab-11e2-8bf6-e70cb6ae066e_story.html

Off-topic, but I am very unhappy with the online version of the Post and am switching to NYT online even though it is costing me dearly!

By "dearly" I mean 99 cents this month and like 13 bucks in coming months. But 13 bucks buys a lot of tacos y'know?

Ugh I should have known even before clicking that John Kelly was involved. THAT GUY.

I don't mind too much Kelly's DC nostalgia columns, but yes this dog one is a bit much. Kelly used to drum in an early 80s DC powerpop band. Still does on ocassion I think.

Going behind paywall on June 12. Attempts to circumvent it so the wit and wisdom of George Will and Jennifer Rubin can be enjoyed by all resolutely unworked on.

After leaving DC, I tried to get on board with WaPo online (I was a print subscriber previously), but just couldn't do it. Forked over my pesos for the NYT online, and I ain't lookin' back.

I think one of the problems with paywalls is that the internet has given us a taste for having a wider range of media access than we used to, so more people now are likely to be used to reading the Post AND the Times AND the Journal AND local newspapers AND a bunch of different magazines AND foreign papers, and when they all suddenly decide to charge you, it seems like a lot of money in aggregate.

and so we just read blog posts and tweets about the articles in the paper and figure we've got the gist.

This seems like it'll be nothing but a bunch of fuckery.

If you don't want their wine advice, there's always upscale donuts

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2013/06/19/a-dozen-weeks-of-doughnuts-week-13-mamas-donut-bites-and-miller-farms/?wprss=rss_food

6 bottles every 3 months? but that'll only last a week?!

“Crime is down?” he asked, noting the rent for his new Logan Circle apartment is $4,000 a month. “I pay that and I need to deal with this? I do not feel safe.”

According to some papers (mainly Le Figaro, France, though) over here, the WP is going to publish a major "Obama and Beyonce are having an affair" thing - it's been revealed by Pascal Rostaing, a French photographer who's not known for being wrong about this kind of thing, usually, apparently. We'll see.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/2014/02/10/03004-20140210ARTFIG00155-un-celebre-paparazzi-francais-promet-un-scoop-mondial-sur-barack-obama-et-beyonce.php

Sounds like French fanfic

Yeah, already been denied.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/238954/washington-post-no-plans-to-report-obama-is-having-an-affair-with-beyonce/

And now Rostain says he's got confirmation that they're definitely still working on the story, but that he never said it was going to be published tomorrow. Whatever. Apologies.

Sounds like this guy is an amusing fantasist.

bey would never be so tawdry as to have an affair w/ obama. i mean seriously.

maybe w/ a king, where's the nearest king

At issue is whether the couple must re-negotiate the arrangement they made after their 2006 divorce, in which Orszag funded a $400,000 trust for their two children’s tuition and major expenses and the couple agreed to split other costs. Kennedy, who makes $350,000 a year as a consultant for McKinsey, now wants $22,000 a month in direct payments, which Orszag’s lawyer called “backdoor alimony cloaked as child support.”

The arguments and the related filings paint a picture of a particular strain of Washington-meets-Wall-Street wealth: tuition bills at the tony Georgetown Day School, trips on private jets, nannies, and private coaching for the kids’ sports.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2014/03/12/peter-orszag-and-ex-wife-in-contentious-court-fight-over-child-support/?hpid=z5

So so sad about the death of Betty Bacall. I almost lost Ben to her, the only acceptable person. As he would say,she was a spectacular dame
— Sally Quinn (@sallyquinndc) August 13, 2014

That makes planning children’s parties, especially first birthday parties, big business in and around the District. Parents typically pay between $400 and $800 for an established planner, who will organize everything from decoration themes (“Frozen” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” are especially popular this year) to cake (sometimes one to be eaten, one for the photos) to goodie bags (one parent sent every child home with a goldfish).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/what-bao-bao-has-in-common-with-other-1-year-olds-in-dc/2014/08/22/3daf105c-294c-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html

wtf with this SPLC piece
I'm sure there's room to criticize that org but this is near parodic brainless "objectivity." are Post writers so dumb they actually think phrases like "allegedly" and "so-called" read as neutral rather than dubious/sarcastic?

The real victim of the opioid crisis, the rich guy who died a while back:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stop-blaming-my-late-husband-arthur-sackler-for-the-opioid-crisis/2019/04/11/5b8478a4-5c89-11e9-a00e-050dc7b82693_story.html

pic.twitter.com/9Iy2l2FKF9

— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) August 9, 2019

Wise Op-Ed writer: No one in World War II cared about "identity politics" - they had a damn war to fight.
Actual WWII generals: I insist we have separate black units so that the jazz-style soldiering of these fellows does not seduce white nurses into a life of vice and chicanery.

— Don Hughes (@getfiscal) August 9, 2019

someone please send marc thiessen to China to cover the coronavirus story up close and fatally personal

On stark display in the nation’s capital were two irreconcilable versions of America, each refusing to accept what the other considered to be undeniable fact.

jfc

was this ever posted here?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_pf.html

Trey's aunt saw me taking notes. "You're writing a story about him?" Vicki Cox asked, amused. I confirmed that I was.

"But . . . why?" she asked.

A few feet away, the Great Zucchini was pretending to be afraid of his own hand.

"I mean," Vicki said, "what's the hook?"

Now, the Great Zucchini was eating toilet paper.