MEDIA CAPITAL
The executive branch and the press haven't been this close since …
TO CLOSE FOR
COMFORT?
BY MARGARET
CARLSON TIME
COLUMNIST
AND THE WEEK
MANAGING EDITOR
Each spring, the tribal rite the press holds
for itself gets more crowded with folks who've
never been inside a newsroom or held political
office and has become less satisfying as a
result. Celebrities still come (James Denton
of Desperate Housewives, Maura Tierney of
ER) but not many more than once. One was
embarrassed to say that until his limo pulled
up to the Hilton, he thought he was going
for dinner at the White House. Imagine what
a comedown it is to be in a low-ceilinged
ballroom with 2,500 of the president's closest
friends. You'd be closer to George Bush if you
watched the thing on C-Span.
The parties surrounding the dinner are the
tail that wags the dog. Who doesn't covet an
invitation to lunch at Tammy Haddad's house
and the after-party thrown by Bloomberg (despite
ear-splitting, conversation-stopping music) more
than the dinner? What made news this year is
the debate over the entertainment. Inside the
room, Stephen Colbert died. Outside, the failure
to laugh at his routine, five minutes of which was
devoted to an endless video of Colbert stalked
by veteran correspondent Helen Thomas, was
final proof that the MSM is hopelessly out of
touch. On this, the bloggers have a point, but
not because Colbert was remotely funny. The
dinner reveals an inside-the-Beltway coziness the
public suspects but rarely witnesses. The reporters
asking multi-part questions at an East Room
press conference are the same ones laughing too
hard at Bush (and his evil, but very funny, twin)
on Saturday night.
The press is more Rottweiler than lapdog,
but you'd never know it from these annual
spectacles shown (and reshown) repeatedly
on C-Span. The other news is that Academy
Award winner George Clooney, the biggest
celeb in attendance, is definitely running for
office someday. He pretended to remember me,
which made my five hours in an airless banquet
hall worthwhile and showed he's mastered the
shared wisdom of getting ahead in Hollywood
and Washington: First, be sincere … after you
fake that, everything else is easy.
THE MORNING AFTER
Whoever invented the Bloody Mary wasn't
paid enough. By the time you got to Cristina
and John McLaughlin's annual brunch on
the roof of the Hay Adams Hotel on Sunday,
you needed one. Rev. Al Sharpton was
"feeling chipper" and still weighing in on the
President's comment on his approval ratings
before going to the Stop Genocide in Darfur
rally. "I think it's a whole lot of noise and little
substance, [although] I do think that last
night was the wrong occasion [for that]." On
Colbert, the Rev. said: "He was all right, but
a little flat." Baseball Hall of Famer Tommy
Lasorda held court at the Sunday affair with
everyone who preferred to talk about sports
(and Iraq). Others feeling chipper after the
long weekend included John McCaslin, Bob
and Sue Merry, Bob Hormats, former Virginia
Gov. Doug Wilder, Andrea Roane, Queen
Noor, Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff, Secretary of Commerce Carlos
Gutierrez, Desperate Housewives heartthrob
James Denton and Sen. Richard Shelby.
IN
SEARCH
OF THE
PERFECT
SOUND
BITE
BY JOHNMCCASLIN COLUMNIST
OF " INSIDE THE BELTWAY" FOR THE WASHINGTON TIMES
What I look forward to most with each
WHCAD (my first one came in 1984 while
covering President Reagan) is the inevitable
encounter with the unexpected somebody
who unwittingly utters the timeliest quote.
This 2006 dinner, like previous ones,
featured the year's leading newsmakers:
President Bush, Valerie Plame, George
Clooney, and Tony Snow. And there was the
usual lineup of unusual guests, such as Jeff
"Skunk" Baxter of the Doobie Brothers, a
guest of The Washington Times, who came clad
in a kilt. Sure enough, by the time the sun
rose over Kalorama on Sunday morning, my
notebook was filled with asides and assertions,
comments and confessions, exclamations and
exaggerations – and phone numbers, so I
could corroborate all of the above.
While climbing the stairs to John
and Cristina McLaughlin's morning after
brunch on the rooftop terrace of the Hay
Adams Hotel, I realized I still lacked the
newspaperman's equivalent of the weekend's
best soundbite. But there, suddenly, he was:
Lasorda, offering a friendly wave while, off
to the side, in their Sunday finest, Desperate
Housewives' James Denton and Queen Noor
held court.
Sure, Tommy Lasorda knows everything
there is to know about baseball, but it wasn't
pitching that the Hall of Famer wanted to talk
about while taking in the impressive view of
the White House below. Rather, the bloody
war in Iraq was on his mind: "Whenever I'm
at a restaurant and spot somebody in a military
uniform, I pick up their check," he told me,
"to show them my appreciation for what
they're doing for my country." And so read
my column lead.
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