This Town (38 page)

“Let’s have lunch someday,” Quinn told Jordan. “Give me a call.”

“You call me,” Jordan replied. “You’re the junior partner in this friendship.”

Rice was still a junior partner in the Obama cabinet. But by dint of her status now—in the news, a useful destination—she was a senior attraction at The Last Party. Even Vernon Jordan himself sidled up to her. As Rice navigated the masquerade, people staring at her like a zoo animal, it struck me that she was the only top Obama administration official that I recognized here. Few journalists under the age of forty attended, either, let alone any of the new political superbloggers like the
Washington Post
’s Ezra Klein, just dubbed by the
Atlantic
to be
“the presumptive dean of Washington Journalism.”

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida were the only actual elected officials I saw. Wasserman Schultz said she felt like she had “walked into a novel.” In general, the party was conspicuously devoid of “earpieces,” denoting the presence of sufficiently high-value targets. One of the few guests meriting a security detail was Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador, who hovered dangerously over the buffet table, eyeing a massive Christmas ham (his detail was trained to protect him only from terrorists, not
treif
).

This Town parties fall into three basic categories: the parties for young, hyper-ambitious operators, who are critical—even sneering—about the people currently in power; the parties for has-beens, who spend their time being critical of the people currently in power, because they know they once did a better job; and the parties heavy with current officials, who fear the young, because they know they are circling their jobs, and who fear the old, because the ex-officials remind them of what their futures will be like. The Last Party was mostly old, with a little bit of current Washington sprinkled in.

Later in the evening, Colin Powell was seen holding court in the kitchen with a small group of journalists that included Isaacson and Jeffrey Goldberg. Powell appeared to be explaining to everyone
how things really should get done
in This Town, based, of course, on his experience.

I encountered Chris Matthews at the buffet table, the same place he had stormed away from me four years ago. Whenever I see him now, Matthews always mentions “that hatchet job” but says he is no longer mad at me. He does not hold grudges, which he says “proves that I am not really Irish.” Good for him. We’ll likely never have lunch in This Town, but the shepherd’s pie at Sally’s buffet was superb.

In the corner, Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell were huddled around a small table with Barbara Walters, Alan’s former girlfriend. I overheard Barbara saying something about Jake Tapper, ABC’s handsome White House correspondent who that day had announced that he was leaving for CNN, where he would have his own show. Tapper was, at that moment, back in the living room taking congratulations—performing his gracious duty as a destination—while the Alan-Andrea-Barbara trio remained parked in place, nursing their drinks.

•   •   •

I
t was around this time that I read a biography of Bradlee written by Jeff Himmelman, a former research assistant for Bob Woodward who had also collaborated on a memoir by Ben and Sally’s son, Quinn Bradlee.
Published earlier in 2012, the biography,
Yours in Truth: A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee
, had kicked up some major dust inside This Town, mostly because Himmelman included quotations from a 1990 interview that Bradlee gave when writing
A Good Life
in which he seemed to suggest that Woodward might have embellished certain cinematic details about his dealings with Deep Throat. The revelation did not strike anyone as that big of a deal—good editors are supposed to have doubts, and the substantive core of the Watergate stories has certainly held up. But
Woodward reacted to the Himmelman book with guns blazing and accused his former protégé of ignoring a 2010 interview Himmelman had conducted with Bradlee in which the editor said he did not think Woodward embellished anything. Sally backed Woodward and said she was speaking for Ben. Himmelman was, needless to say, no longer invited to dinner, let alone The Last Party.

I liked
Yours in Truth
, mostly for its primary-source mine and the window it afforded to Ben at the peak of his powers (via old letters, speeches, and interviews). It portrayed a world, especially after Watergate, in which journalists had entered the cultural spotlight as they never had. Even while this ink-stained Camelot did not last, celebrity sheen lingers on the profession in This Town, with or without the wins. And here we all were.

Bottom line, The Last Party was a good party: comfort food heaped at the buffet, shelter from the elements, and plenty of folk heroes. It barely mattered that the ornate theater held a slight mustiness, that it was a few stages removed from the prime dramas being performed that night on the business ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Or, for that matter, that it felt worlds removed, more than usual, from the solid ground of the Real America.

It still felt good to be invited—to be part of The Club, at least for now. I watched Bob Schieffer greeting Mike Allen, who would be on CBS’s
Face the Nation
that Sunday. There, in the green room, Allen would take a photo of the red and green Christmas bagels with his iPhone, which we all know because CBS’s Major Garrett took a photo of Mikey taking the photo of the bagels, which Garrett then put out on Twitter.

In the course of the night, I twice overheard Susan Rice telling people about her “out-of-body experience,” while the historian Michael Beschloss was getting praise for his “awesome Twitter feed” and Woodward and Bernstein walked out together into the rain. Ben disappeared for a while in the middle, but was back in the foyer by the end of The Last Party, bidding farewell to the invited as the caravan moved on.

Epilogue

A
t the beginning of January, Mike Allen, God bless him, mentioned in Playbook that this tome would be coming out a few months later. He included a blurb from the publisher’s catalogue and a link to its Amazon page. He also mentioned the title,
This Town
, a play on the two-word refrain that people (in This Town) put into so many sentences—a cliché of belonging, knowingness, and self-mocking civic disdain. “Well, I guess that’s the way it is in
This Town
.”

This Town
was first suggested to me as a title several months ago by my publisher, David Rosenthal. It has been the working name of the book since, the last in a series of them that has also included “Suck-up City,” “You’ll Always Have Lunch in This Town Again,” and “The Club.”

The power of Playbook continues to amaze: After Allen’s mention, e-mails flooded in immediately from friends around town, real friends and fake. They congratulated me on being finished with the book (I wasn’t) and many of them said they had preordered it (thank you for your service!). In the coming days, I was inundated with queries from people, some through intermediaries, about how they or their clients would be portrayed. Others were worried that they would not be in the book at all. Still others wanted to make sure I would be “taking down” so-and-so in some way, because he/she deserved it. And, by the way, if I took out that tiny thing about them, they would give me something better about one of their “friends.”

This pre-release freak-out was itself a corroborating data point: not the most flattering study of This Town doing its vainglorious bidding, in other words. Everyone was so convinced of their outsize place in the grimy ecosystem that, surely, this book had to be about
them
. They feared narcissistic injury, whether by inclusion or omission. At the very least, this desperate hustle reinforced the not-terribly-new assumption that This Town imposes on its actors a reflex toward devious and opportunistic behavior, and also a tendency to care more about public relations than any other aspect of their professional lives—and maybe even personal lives. Several people had warned me this would happen.

I had gotten a taste of the self-loving paranoia a few times as I reported this monster. It was especially pronounced during the Kurt Bardella–Darrell Issa affair. That was when many people first learned that I was writing the book. When Allen wrote of the Bardella saga, he referred to it as my “D.C. takedown book,” which is essentially how he described it this time too.

The most stunning by-product to the Playbook mention in January was an e-mail received by at least two of my editors at the
Times
and maybe to others (not to me). It was from Sidney Blumenthal, the former journalist for the
New Republic
, the
New Yorker
, and other places, who became fully intoxicated with the Clintons and joined the White House as a senior adviser in 1997. Caught up in the Lewinsky matter, he was called before Kenneth Starr’s grand jury and was also one of three witnesses called to testify at the Senate impeachment trial. Blumenthal was renowned in the Clinton orbit for his egotistical bent, bare-knuckled loyalty, and robust imagination. Coworkers referred to him as “GK,” for “Grassy Knoll.” He joined Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2007, and
Clinton wanted to bring him with her to the State Department until a small White House revolt ensued. When Blumenthal’s name came up as a job candidate, Axelrod said he would quit first. Gibbs, sitting next to Axelrod, seconded this. Kibosh.

Last anyone heard, Sid was doing some writing, a book or something.

Back in the 1990s, Blumenthal had apparently written a play called
This Town
about the Washington press corps. I was not aware of this. In the course of my telling my title to dozens of the city’s political-media insiders, not a single one mentioned that
This Town
had also been the name of a play. I doubt more than a handful had a clue.

Finally, in late December, as I was leaving The Last Party, Sally Quinn mentioned to me that she liked the title
This Town
and that, by the way, it had also once been the name of a play in the 1990s by Sidney Blumenthal. Who knew? But I was not surprised. It is a good title. Elvis Costello had a song called “This Town,” I remembered, and Frank Sinatra, too, I think. It goes without saying that titles cannot be copyrighted.

But Sid was nonetheless aggrieved. His e-mail to my editors—again, not to me—included the subject line “Re: Mark Leibovich: Potential Plagiarism Problem.” Yikes.

Blumenthal, whom I think I have met once, began the e-mail by demanding that I acknowledge that he “wrote a widely produced and reviewed satirical play, entitled ‘This Town,’ on the Washington press corps . . . and that is the origin of the phrase and concept.” He boasted that his play had been “prominently staged at the Washington Press Club.” He concluded that “of course, titles, unlike trademarks, can’t be copyrighted, but they shouldn’t be plagiarized. Perhaps Leibovich is unaware of the problem. Perhaps he was born yesterday. But he should not open himself up to a silly plagiarism problem.”

The key word here is “silly,” though admittedly my credentials are suspect because I have never had anything “prominently staged at the Washington Press Club.” Still, I feel bad to have inflicted hurt unto Blumenthal by overlooking a play that’s been forgotten by nearly everyone, in “this” or any town. And by Sidney’s own Wikipedia page too. So, in good faith, I will acknowledge that Blumenthal apparently wrote a play in the nineties called
This Town
, and future editions of this book will hereby be known as the New Testament.

•   •   •

A
s Obama’s sequel inauguration approached, dreariness overhung This Town (formal citation: Sidney’s play). No one seemed that excited about the quadrennial pageant, especially compared with the historic hopefest of four years earlier. The “peaceful transfer of power” felt more obligatory, especially since no power was being transferred, but even more so because another massive corporate-funded celebration of the political class seemed completely unnecessary and undeserved. Not that this ever stopped anyone before, or that Obama and his helpers didn’t deserve a party; but no one’s heart seemed really in it.

Plus, everyone seemed to be getting sick with the flu, or worse, or double-worse. Hillary Clinton suffered a nasty concussion and was not heard from for weeks, except when she was checked into the hospital after being diagnosed with a blood clot near her brain. Whoa. Hillary! This Town had big plans for her, had already written her fully into the 2016 narrative. She can’t leave yet. (Luckily, she recovered nicely.) George Herbert Walker Bush, the last gentleman, was in and out of intensive care. As is routine these days,
at least one outlet—Dallas radio station WBAP, in this case—had to report him prematurely dead. They were first with the news.

The great Richard Ben Cramer died January 7 of a lung cancer that few knew he had. Cramer’s exhaustive portraits of presidential candidates in
What It Takes
was the kind of immersive and access-driven blowout that no politician would tolerate today, and probably no writer would have the guts and genius (and indulgent publisher) to pull off. Cramer inspired me in big and small ways. When people ask me why this book has no index, I will point to what Cramer told the
New York Times
in 1992. “
For years I watched all these Washington jerks, all these Capitol Hill, executive-branch, agency wise-guys and reporters go into, say, Trover bookstore, take a political book off the shelf, look up their names, glance at the page and put the book back,” he said. “Washington reads by index, and I wanted those people to read the damn thing.” But Cramer won me over for life in the late nineties when I saw him declare, at a conference in Seattle, that journalism had been “overtaken by a biblical plague of dickheads.”

Even Tammy Haddad seemed not her usual Tam-o-sonic self. Her husband, Ted, had been sick with lymphoma, and you could tell the whole thing was taking a toll on the Force of Nature. I saw her a few days before the inauguration, after she returned from her annual hop to Las Vegas for the Miss America Pageant. She was also getting ready to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, which she does every year—and mentions this a few times. Just as I’ve never been to Aspen, I’ve never been to Davos, which makes me sad, though I was able to experience the magic through things like the Twitter feed of my
Times
colleague Andrew Ross Sorkin: “Nice to meet you @johnlegend,” @andrewrsorkin wrote. “I’ve been to good parties @davos before but your performance @sparker’s blowout tops them.”

In between Vegas and Davos, Tammy would also be producing two big shindigs on inaugural weekend, one for the Daily Beast on Sunday and the other for Third Way at the Old Ebbitt Grill on Monday. She said she convinced the Huffington Post to sign on to the Ebbitt Grill party, which Tammy arranged to be simulcast on her WHC Insider website. But then, on the eve of the festivities, Tammy’s mother died and she had to rush to Pittsburgh, leaving This Town to carry on without her.

It wasn’t the same. The Sunday thing, at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, offered a high-end diplomatic spread of John Kerry and Colin Powell, a Hollywood sprinkling of Eva Longoria and Harvey Weinstein, and lots of fresh shellfish and cannoli and not-so-fresh moustache-related jokes for David Axelrod, who is always gracious but seemed a bit done with all this. Chris Dodd worked the room, eating a brownie, laughing at everything.

Someone introduced me to Powell, whom I was careful to address as “General,” not “Secretary,” because he supposedly notices this stuff. (Several Bush White House officials believed this was an attempt by Powell to distance himself from an administration he was at odds with. Matt Latimer, a former Bush speechwriter, suggested this in his memoir,
Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor
, which received little notice. But Powell noticed. He fired off an e-mail to Latimer that read, in part: “Someone told you or your speech writers that I preferred the title ‘General’ after I left the State Department. That is true. In typical paranoid White House fashion, it was thought I was not using the Secretary title in order to distance myself from the President and you guys wrote in ‘Secretary’ in the President’s remarks. At least, that was what you thought. The reality is that ‘General’ is proper. I was no longer Secretary Powell, but ‘former Secretary Powell.’ I am never ‘former General Powell.’” The e-mail, which Latimer forwarded to me, went on from there.)

Now fully ensconced in his campaign for governor of Virginia, Washington outsider Terry McAuliffe walked the Cafe Milano red carpet, just like they do in Roanoke. The superlobbyist couple of Heather and Tony Podesta were leaving as I arrived. They had, a few days earlier, announced their separation, “as best friends,” and everyone tried to respect their privacy during this difficult time. They said they were off to a Google party.

“Welcome to the land of no eye contact,” said Mike Barnicle, the former
Boston Globe
columnist, now fully reinvented as a regular on
Morning Joe
. People kept rushing up to him, excited, because he’s on TV now,
a presence
, which is everything. “The fucking pope could be here,” Barnicle said between well-wishers, “and if people think you’re a fucking weatherman on TV, they’re more excited to meet you.”

The Huffington Post joint was more of the same. Arianna couldn’t make it because she, too, was in Davos, where she sat on a “Will Washington Work?” panel with the likes of Darrell Issa, David Gergen, and a few others for whom Washington has in fact worked quite well. In Arianna’s absence, ample star power shined in her stead at the Old Ebbitt Grill. Paula Abdul was leaving a unisex bathroom as I waited to use it. We were introduced by an upstart D.C. publicist, Susan Toffler, and I went to shake Paula’s hand but she demanded a hug. Why? “Because I’m a hugger,” she shouted, and so Paula and I hugged.

Susan the publicist told me that she and a few others were trying somehow to fill Tammy’s unfillable void as the party’s prime orchestrators. “We keep asking ourselves, ‘What would Tammy do?’” she said, invoking the Force of Nature as one might Jesus. And one day, like Jesus, Tammy will return. But then Susan the upstart publicist was gone, before I could even wish her well and thank her for her service.

The Inauguration itself moved me. This was surprising but shouldn’t have been, because I’m moved every time no matter who’s taking the oath. I spent much of the day wandering the streets: orderly frozen crowds, more diverse than usual in D.C., filing toward the Mall and parade route. Kids sat on parents’ shoulders waving little flags, a street-corner chorus sang “God Bless America.” These were good moments on one of those stately occasions that transcend the serial battering that This Town inflicts. The monuments were scrubbed clean and the Metro was mobbed but festive and on time. I ducked into a bar to watch the president’s speech on TV. It was crisp and short, and then I started reading tweets until I was jarred from my handheld trance by David Gregory on TV, distilling for America the momentous proceedings before her.

“I think what we’ve learned from this president,” he said, restoring the narrative to its pundit lingua franca, “is that his outside game is much better than his inside game.” Well, yes, if we’ve learned anything.

And the future was officially under way again in This Town.