This Town (40 page)
Chapter 5.
Embedding
a
New York Times Magazine
story about Mike Allen
:
Mark Leibovich, “The Man the White House Wakes Up To,”
New York Times Magazine
, April 21, 2010.
Chapter 6.
“Thank You for Your Service”
June profile of General Stanley McChrystal
:
Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General,”
Rolling Stone
, July 8–22, 2010.
$60,000 a pop for speaking gigs
:
David Gura, “Gen. Stanley McChrystal Reportedly Earns $60,000 per Speaking Engagement,” NPR, August 30, 2010.
Some members of McChrystal’s staff said as much
:
Sean D. Naylor, “Sources:
Rolling Stone
Quotes Made by Jr. Staff,”
Army Times
, July 7, 2010. Howard Kurtz, “Rolling Stone’s McChrystal Interview Shows the Magazine’s Nonmusical Side,”
Washington Post
, June 24, 2010.
Hastings was quizzed
:
CNN
Reliable Sources
transcript, interviews with Michael Hastings and Lara Logan, June 27, 2010.
“If there’s a lower form of life”
:
Matt Taibbi, “Lara Logan, You Suck,”
Rolling Stone
, June 28, 2010.
“too many d-bags”
:
Kiki Ryan, “Tammy Haddad’s Brunch ‘Fun, Personal,’” Politico, April 30, 2010.
“There’s just something about her that pisses people off”
:
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Hating Hillary,”
The New Yorker
, February 26, 1996.
“Anyone who sleeps with that bitch deserves a medal”
:
John F. Harris,
The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House
(New York: Random House, 2006), 357.
“outraged by the president’s behavior”
:
Sally Quinn, “In Washington, That Letdown Feeling,”
Washington Post
, November 2, 1998.
“24/7 echo-chamber”
:
Remarks by the President at the University of Michigan Spring Commencement, The White House, May 1, 2010.
“Japan Surrenders—Where’s the Bounce?”
:
Remarks by the President at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, The White House, May 2, 2010.
“You know, Alsop”
:
Purdum, “The Evolution of D.C.’s Premier Event,”
Vanity Fair
, April 30, 2010.
spearheaded a $50 million television campaign
:
Aaron Smith, “BP’s Television Ad Blitz,” CNN, June 4, 2010.
Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi had to stay home
:
Mark Leibovich, “Terry McAuliffe and the Other Green Party,”
New York Times
, July 18, 2012.
“One of the reasons they wanted to hire me”
:
“First Mover: Ed Henry,”
Adweek
, September 12, 2011.
Chronology of events
: Frank Rich, “They Report, You Don’t Have to Decide,”
New York Times
, May 8, 2010.
Rachel Sklar, “From ‘Lone Wolf’ to Taliban
: The Disconnect in the Developing Times Square Bombing Story,” Mediaite, May 6, 2010.
“The guy memorizes four words”
:
Bill Sammon, “Bush Mocks and Dismisses NBC White House Correspondent,”
Washington Times
, May 27, 2002.
Chapter 7. The Roach Motel of Power
He is the five-term senator
:
Mark Leibovich, “Dodd Prepares to Depart in Triumph,”
New York Times
, May 24, 2010.
He worked as a Senate page
:
David Halbfinger, “Citing Tough Race, Dodd Steps Aside,”
New York Times
, January 6, 2010.
“Tip O’Neill once came down here”
:
Mark Leibovich, “‘Top-Tier’ Candidate? Maybe Not, but Dodd Is Still Enjoying the Ride,”
New York Times
, April 28, 2007.
David Obey . . . joined the lobbying shop run by former colleague Richard Gephardt
:
Thomas Edsall, “The Trouble with That Revolving Door,”
New York Times
, December 18, 2011.
a lobbyist who was being paid about $70,000 a month
:
Dan Eggen, “Armenia–Turkey Dispute over Genocide Label Sets off Lobbying Frenzy,”
Washington Post
, March 4, 2010.
Susan Bayh as a “professional board member”
:
Sylvia Smith, “Across the Boards,” Fort Wayne
Journal Gazette
, December 16, 2007.
“perfectly representative face for the rotted Washington establishment”
:
Glenn Greenwald, “The Face of Rotted Washington,” Salon, November 30, 2009.
“acting to entrench the culture of narcissism and hypocrisy”
:
Matthew Yglesias, “Evan Bayh’s Narcissism,” ThinkProgress, December 16, 2009.
Evan Bayh wrote a much-discussed op-ed
:
Evan Bayh, “Why I’m Leaving the Senate,”
New York Times
, February 20, 2010.
“They look at us like we’re worse than used-car salesmen”
:
Ezra Klein, “In Congress, Fundraising’s Steep Price,”
Washington Post
, October 31, 2010.
“practically a caricature of what a sell-out looks like”
:
Steve Benen, “Evan Bayh and a Never-Ending Series of Disappointments,”
Washington Monthly
, June 7, 2011.
congressman-turned-lobbyist Billy Tauzin
:
Alex Wayne and Drew Armstrong, “Tauzin’s $11.6 Million Made Him Highest-Paid Health-Law Lobbyist,” Bloomberg, November 29, 2011.
Their company would bring in $11 million
:
Silla Brush, “Patton Boggs Acquires Lobbying Firm of Former Sens. Lott, Breaux,”
The Hill
, July 1, 2010.
Chapter 8. How It Works
story that explored whether excessive BlackBerry use
:
Erika Lovley,
“BlackBerry, Forbidden Fruit?”
Politico,
October 28, 2009.
“I haven’t sent a press release”
:
Ben White, “Bernanke Gives Highly-Anticipated Speech at 10 a.m.,” Politico
,
August 27, 2010.
“It is only 11:30 a.m. but Kurt Bardella is on his third Red Bull”
:
Andie Coller, “Blasting Politicos,” Politico, July 20, 2009.
“I don’t ever stop”
:
Erika Lovley, “Is Congress a Health Threat?” Politico, January 15, 2010.
“It rubbed a lot of folks the wrong way”
:
Luke Mullins, “The Comeback,”
Washingtonian
, July 2011.
Los Angeles Times
exposé that was published
:
Erik Lichtblau, “Issa’s Rags-to-Riches Tale Has Some Ugly Chapters,”
Los Angeles Times
,
May 23, 1998.
felony charges related to car thefts in 1972 and 1980
:
Mark Leibovich, “Republican Emerges as Obama’s Annoyer-in-Chief,”
New York Times
,
July 6, 2010.
“notorious hatchet man”
:
Erik Wemple, “
New York Times
and Rep. Issa: A Spat to Remember,”
Washington Post
, September 8, 2011.
Howard Kurtz conducted a phone interview with Issa
:
Howard Kurtz, “The GOP’s New Top Cop,” Daily Beast, November 27, 2010.
Ryan Lizza, who was profiling Issa for the
New Yorker
:
Ryan Lizza, “Don’t Look Back,”
The New Yorker
, January 24, 2011.
Barbara Walters herself, the queen of the “get”
:
Bill Carter, “Barbara Walters Apologizes for Helping Aide to Assad of Syria,”
New York Times
, June 5, 2012.
It was assumed that the job would go to Edolphus Towns
:
Betsy Woodruff, “Elijah Cummings, Party Man,”
National Review
, October 23, 2012.
“I did lose my way a little bit”
:
Mark Walker, “Exclusive: Former Issa Spokesman Breaks Silence,”
North County Times
, March 18, 2011.
“As long as her candidacy does not completely implode”
:
Kurt Bardella, “Bachmann Can Win by Losing,” Daily Caller, May 16, 2011.
Chapter 9.
Performing Arts
“The Ego Has Landed”
:
Al Kamen, “In the Loop,”
Washington Post,
April 27, 2009.
“He would overdo all this flattery”
:
Bill Clinton, eulogy delivered at Richard Holbrooke’s funeral, Kennedy Center, January 14, 2011.
“Do people really talk like that?”
:
Rajiv Chandrasekaran,
Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012), 230.
“the most egotistical bastard I’ve ever met”
:
Peter Baker, “Woodward Book Says Afghanistan Divided White House,”
New York Times
,
September 21, 2010.
free to
fire Holbrooke “over the objection of your secretary of state”
:
Chandrasekaran,
Little America
,
229.
They tried to exclude him from an Oval Office confab
:
Ibid.,
230.
One major sore point
:
James Mann,
The Obamians:
The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power
(New York: Viking, 2012), 234.
In March, Kati received a postcard
:
Kati Marton,
Paris: A Love Story
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 32.
Chapter 10. Anarchy in the Quiet Car
“BP America, facing a spate of investigations”
:
Mike Allen, “BP America Hires Geoff Morrell,” Politico, September 5, 2011.
exploding to $2.51 billion
:
Danielle Ivory, “BP’s U.S. Defense Contracts Doubled Since Year of Gulf Oil Spill,” Bloomberg, February 6, 2013.
“made nerdy sexy”
:
Jodi Kantor, “Obama’s Man on the Budget: Just 40 and Going Like 60,”
New York Times
, March 27, 2009.
a divorced father of two with a very important job gets very publicly engaged
:
Mark Leibovich, “If Peter Orszag Is So Smart, What Will He Do Now?”
New York Times
, January 8, 2010.
I wrote a profile . . . about Ray LaHood
:
Mark Leibovich, “G.O.P. Résumé, Cabinet Post, Knack for Odd Jobs,”
New York Times
, May 4, 2009.
Chapter 11. The Presidential Campaign: This Movie Again
“Ricchetti has been through the revolving door”
:
Dana Milbank, “Settling In to Washington’s Ways,”
Washington Post
,
March 6, 2012.
“threat to our democracy”
:
Sam Stein, “President Obama Softens Super PAC Opposition,” Huffington Post, February 6, 2012.
Bloomberg News reported that . . . Jim Messina
:
Hans Nichols, “Obama Campaign Chief Messina Seeks to Assure Wall Street Donors,” Bloomberg, February 8, 2012.
forty-five-minute sit-down in the Oval Office
:
Jeffrey Goldberg, “Obama to Iran and Israel: ‘As President of the United States, I Don’t Bluff,’”
The Atlantic
,
March 2, 2012.
Burns’s story in Politico was one of the election cycle’s seminal
:
Alexander Burns, “How Much Do Voters Know?” Politico, March 13, 2012.
“Are voters stupid?” story
:
Jason Linkins, “Are Voters Stupid, or Are They Just Routinely Subjected to Terrible Political Reporting?” Huffington Post, March 15, 2012.
“The trip spurred a thought”
:
Jodi Kantor,
The Obamas
(New York: Little, Brown, 2013), 161.
a reported $5 million advance
:
Matthew Flamm, “Penguin Press Pays Mega Bucks for Political Book,”
Crain’s New York Business
, March 25, 2010.
Chapter 12. The Presidential Campaign: Saddened, Troubled
“The First Gay President”
:
Andrew Sullivan, “Obama: The First Gay President,”
Newsweek
,
May 13, 2012.
“Obama Stumbles out of the Gate”
:
Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, “Obama Stumbles out of the Gate,” Politico, May 25, 2012.
“I know three, personally”
:
Mary Bruce, “White House Distances Itself from Hilary Rosen,” ABC News, April 12, 2012.
A 2003 profile of Rosen
:
Matt Bai, “Hating Hilary,”
Wired
, February 2003.
political system as a “closed game”
:
Jack Mirkinson, “Tom Brokaw Doubles Down on WHCD: ‘If You Go, It’ll Steal Your Soul,’” Huffington Post, May 8, 2012.
The unemployment rate still languished at 8.2 percent
:
Bureau of Labor Statistics, “The Employment Situation in May 2012,” June 4, 2012.
the median net worth of an American family dropped
:
Binyamin Appelbaum, “Family Net Worth Drops to Level of Early ’90s, Fed Says,”
New York Times
, June 11, 2012.
the top 150 consulting companies had already grossed
:
Howard Fineman, “Political Consultants Rake It In, $466 Million and Counting in 2012 Cycle,” Huffington Post, June 5, 2012.
“Being a vice president is a little”
:
Mark Leibovich, “For a Blunt Biden, an Uneasy Supporting Role,”
New York Times
, May 7, 2012.