What happens when you don’t feel like answering questions from Mike Allen, Bestest Political Reporter in the World? He’ll write 1,200 words on how much of a dick you are. MORE »

Like everything else poisonous and wrong with America today, the curse of the “senior administration official” is all Henry Kissinger’s fault. This we learn from Mike Allen in today’s Politico, as he takes us on a magical journey through the world of journalistic euphemism. MORE »

Having lured away the Post’s John Harris and Jim VandeHei (as well as Capital File’s Anne Schroeder and everyone who has ever written for The Hill), Allbritton’s new media Hill newspaper-plus-website (brilliant! Web 2.0!) has now kind of stolen Mike Allen from Time. MORE »

Last night Fox celebrated the birth, ten years ago, of “Fox News Sunday,” with a star-choked alcohol-soaked party at Cafe Milano. And Wonkette Emerita Ana Marie Cox was there. Her exclusive party report, replete with celebrity encounters, the booze-aided dispensation of social niceties, and a subtly threatening Karl Rove (who “knows” us, if you know what he means), all provided free of charge, after the jump.

(Picture by Patrick Gavin/FishbowlDC)

MORE »

* Reliable Source: Sen. Barack Obama on winning his Grammy: “I’m going for an Emmy next year, best supporting actor in a drama starring John McCain.”. . . Richie Sambora was partying with Mike McCurry as news of his divorce from Heather Locklear was breaking. . . John Roberts has friendly run in with Carol Channing at GWU. . . Fictional black president in “24″ receives warm welcome in D.C. [WP]
* Rush & Molloy: Ann Compton and Mike Allen scuffle with one of the Pope’s nuns. [NYDN]
* Cindy Adams: Fictional, “nasty” love affair is written about Bush and Martha Stewart. [NYP]

A Wonkette embed reports from last night’s [or Wednesday night, or whenever the hell it was] holiday soiree with the Cheneys. Apparently, it was superior to the White House event because Mr. Scooter Libby made the scene in his best pair of mountain trousers with his wife in tow. Libby’s army of auburn-tressed comfort women stayed behind, no doubt trapped in the bear cage. The aspens are turning and our ears are burning! Our operative’s full missive after the jump:

MORE »

We’ve liberated The Washingtonian’s “50 Best and Most Influential Journalists” list from Nexis, taking for granted that no one cares about the 500 words explaining criteria and* We’ve extracted the names from the Washingtonian’s list of D.C.’s “50 Best and Most Influential Journalists” and its sidebars, assuming that those of you who need two-sentence bios of each person can still run out and buy a copy (hey, THE STICK is on the cover) and the rest of you would just rather skip the context and carp and whine about who’s on the list. And, more interestingly, who’s not. The list skews heavily male (with only seven chicks, unless you count Dana Milbank), heavily white and heavily heavy (Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Tom Shales) . No bloggers, except in the sidebars, where AMERICABLOGGER (! Stars, stripes, cue music!) John Avarosis gets a shout out.

More lacunae: Matt Cooper escapes mention, tho his colleague Mike Allen and co-martyr Judy Miller are both on it. Snarky WP ex-WHC Milbank gets a nod over the Post’s current White House reporters. And while we heartily approve of not considering bloggers journalists (though we don’t consider Maureen Dowd one either, and she’s on there), tossing out the entire internet seems, well, obtuse: Jack Shafer’s meth addiction is, apparently, for naught. Pretty much the entire list could have been put together five years ago, actually. Perhaps it was.

List and sidebars after the jump.
*Of COURSE no one asked us to take this list down. We’re this nice just all on our own. Really.

Washingtonian

MORE »

• Scott McClellan evolves from defenseless puppy to vicious attack puppy. [WP]
• Murrow… Koppel… Bashir. ABC News’ new Nightline line-up holds America hostage to faux Michael Jackson flunky. [ABC, Fox News]
• The New Yorker profiles the next Mike Allen: “My great-grandfather invented an oil drill bit back in the early 1900s and was a pioneer in the oil fields of Spindletop, TX and a co-founder of Texaco…My question is what is the Energy Dept. doing to ward off climate change?” [NYer]
• O’Reilly’s amulets: “Now it’s so bad that I spend an enormous amount of money protecting myself against evil.” Does it work in the opposite direction? [Newsday]
• Gays love CNN. Wonder why. [NYP]

In today’s Note, former Postie Mike Allen’s TIME mag debut is treated to a well-lubricated hummer. Allen’s piece is a typically newsmag breathless account of “inside the Bush plan” to rally post-Katrina; it depicts the White House and its allies as aware of their initial stumbles and worried about the President’s management. The Note dubs the clip “the most important reporting of the cycle,” and “indescribably delicious.” Actually, it’s stuffed to the gills with blind quotes. The sources of the griping are:
• one of [Bush's] most trusted confidants
• a key adviser
• a friend who chatted with [Bush] one evening in July
• a former aide
• A youngish aide who is a Bush favorite
• a lobbyist who is tight with the Administration
• someone familiar with the presentation
• an official who helped develop the strategy
• a friend [who] asked in frustration a dozen days after Katrina hit
Man, is “a source close to the President who was recently treated for kidney stones” ever going to be pissed. There is a single fresh, sourced quote in the entire piece, and it goes to Bush counselor Dan Bartlett. You will be shocked to hear that has faith in the President. Look, we don’t have a problem with blind quotes in general, but you shoe-horn that many in one story and it starts to sound like Page Six. As for the Note’s enthusiastic blow job, well, Mike is awfully cute, but maybe the slobbering is to cover up how those sniping quotes, blind or not, torpedo their repeated (if hedging) predictions that the WH would escape its Katrina fumbles unscathed. MORE »

It’s the trainspotting of “celebrity” journalism, but we can’t help it: Once someone pointed out that Maureen Dowd, David Remnick, Rep. Jim Moran, Nina Totenberg, Bob Franken and Roll Call all had listings in today’s “Notice of Unclaimed Property” in the WaPo, we couldn’t stop looking more Washington folks with, apparently, more money than time. (Clearly, not a problem for us.) Among those who are letting their tax refunds (or whatever) burn a hole in the District’s pocket: Postie Howie Kurtz and soon-to-be ex-Postie Mike Allen, Congressional Quarterly, John McLaughlin, investigative reporter “Murrey” Waas and — are you really surprised — “Governors, Board, O of the Federal Reserve.” MORE »

The idea — as cited by Lloyd Gove in his column today — that TIME’s Matt Cooper is fishing for a job at the NYT because the newsweekly’s hire of Mike Allen has made him feel “a bit crowded” seems off to us. First of all, Allen is not that much taller than Dickerson. Does hog the covers, tho. And then there’s the question of whether Matt’s fishing… or was he pushed? Far from being crowded, we hear he may be lonely: Since his bravura performance of “I Was THISCLOSE to Jail” on the courthouse steps last month, the reception by his colleagues has been stilted and the magazine’s editors aren’t sure what to do with him. (Jim Kelley’s response to inquiries about Cooper’s future in last week’s NYT piece were somewhat less than enthusiastic: “It’s not a matter of appropriateness; it’s a matter of effectiveness.”)

The Times, however, has the perfect role for Cooper: foil. Our sources say that it’s not so much the Times that’s interested in Cooper as it is managing editor Bill Keller. The rank-and-file, on the other hand, wonder why Keller would be interested. We suspect Keller is looking for a soulmate, or at least a cellmate. With almost-a-martyr Cooper on staff, Keller might succeed in muddying the waters over of the paper’s internal investigation of Judith Miller’s role in the leaking of the name of CIA agent Valerie Wilson (Plame, whatever).

Please don your tin-foil hats before we continue after the jump.

MORE »