B Y B I L L P R E S S, H O S T O F S I R I U S R A D I O ’ S “ T H E B I L L P R E S S S H OW ” A N D T R I B U N E M E D I A C O L U M N I S T

It’s no secret that all Washington big-shots are merely wanna-be movie stars. Or, as John McCain famously says, “Politics is show biz for ugly people.” But the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is the closest any of us ever get to Tinseltown. It’s a whole weekend of stars and glitter. As with the Oscars, the parties before and after are much more fun than the main event. Once again, Tammy Haddad’s Garden Brunch on Saturday afternoon featured the best mix of media and politics, liberal and conservative, this town has ever seen. Immediately before dinner, Atlantic Monthly gathered the biggest names poolside. Where else could you chat up Mitt Romney and Martin O’Malley at the same time? After-dinner, a lot of people are willing to sell their soul for an invitation to the Bloomberg party. Forget it. It stopped being fun several years ago: too crowded, too pretentious. The place to be this year was Vanity Fair’s soiree, thrown by Christopher Hitchens and DeeDee Myers at Hitchens’s nearby pad. Imagine: a party where you could move around and actually talk to people – Fred Thompson, Steny Hoyer, Jerry Brown, Paul Wolfowitz, Antonin Scalia – and even smoke! Sunday morning, the best way to nurse what by now is a massive hangover is to knock back a Bloody Mary with Al Sharpton and Queen Noor on the roof of the Hay- Adams with John and Cristina McLaughlin. As for the dinner itself? Please! The worst. When the biggest celebrity Washington can draw is Sanjaya …We still have a long way to go to catch up with Hollywood. But we can dream, can’t we? Hooray for Hollywood!