This week, spies caught The Prime Minister of Mongolia, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Good Charlotte, Bob Saget, Anthony Williams, Thomas Friedman, and Condoleezza Rice bumming around DC like common tourists. Their stories are after the jump.

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Study this carefully, young journalists, and maybe someday you too can write blowjob profiles of Tom Friedman and then get your book pimped in his NYT column: MORE »

This is a very special party crash, because we actually did crash it: despite being on the panel that selected one of the winners, we weren’t actually on the list for The Week’s annual award dog-and-pony show. It all worked out in the end, of course, as we’re consummate complainers.

The event, held last night at the Four Seasons, honors people whose opinions a group of rich old people can generally agree are pretty good, or at least entertaining. Oh, and a blogger.

We attended, of course, with the lovely Liz Gorman, whose lovely photos are here. Our write-up can be found, as always, after the jump.

The Week Opinion Awards Gallery

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The tipsters have gotten themselves on the “good” list and uncle Wonk’d has loads of stocking stuffers for an early Christmas. These presents might not be as good as the ones Laura Bush was seen buying, but you get what you pay for. Unwrap a jaywalking John Bolton, an over-caffeinated Katherine Harris, an anatomically correct Anderson Cooper, and an occasionally anonymous Dan Bartlett that comes with elephant sidekick, under the tree.

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Just as Sept. 12 was the day the White House actually got it together, some of the iconic Sept. 11 moments happened in the days and weeks after the attacks. Here are some memories we refuse to surrender:

* A Nation Challenged That was the first time we laughed after 9/11. A Nation Challenged? Good job maintaining that NYT air of comical pomposity under tremendous pressure!

* Somber Wagnerian dirges on CNN Just to add to the “Empire Strikes Back” vibe, all the cable-news stations switched to this outrageous “Imperial March”-style music, which was a hell of a lot more foreboding than we knew. When you were drunk enough — which was always, remember that? — you could almost see Darth Vader walking out of the Ground Zero smoke.

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• Ned Lamont is a gnat on a dog’s ass, electronic spying is cat’s meow. [Blackfive]

• Let’s argue about what is the most evil: Evilness, the Soviet Union at the peak of the Cold War, or Nazis. [TPM Cafe]
• Cheery how-to-fix-Iraq Power Point slide. [Crooked Timber]
• The word “naughty” is never ok. [The Volokh Conspiracy]
• “I think a lot of people put up reviews on Amazon about liberal and conservative books without even reading them. Now, the same thing is happening with milk!” [IMAO]
• Reuters and Lauren Weisberger inspire alternate, better covers for books you read excerpts of in The Atlantic. [HuffPo]

Oy. MORE »

You need keen eyes to spot celebrities in this town — unless, of course, they herald their own presence, as did Bill Cosby and Thomas Friedman this week. It’s also hard to keep a low profile if you’re sporting a shock of silver hair, like Anderson Cooper, or have a nuclear-family-sized security squad, like Anthony Williams.

George Stephanopoulos must have a fetish for being Wonk’d, because he can’t seem to stay hidden. But even discretion doesn’t work all the time, as Condi Rice found out. It’s also totally impossible to be inconspicuous if you’re 7′2″ — and Dikembe Mutombo doesn’t even try.

We all know they’re dying to be seen, so just help feed their celebrit-ego by sending us all your sightings, by email, with “Wonk’d” or “Sighting” in the subject line (along with of the name of the spotted celeb). On behalf of all the dying-for-attention famous people out there, we thank you.

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• Washington Whispers: RNC distributed daily talking points to about 80 pundits and hosts to ensure message discipline about Roberts. . . Rumsfeld signed a “severe weather execution order” two weeks before Katrina that authorized the quick deployment of military personnel. . . Frist gets folksy, brags about practicing surgery on his teddy bear. . . Campbell Brown’s reports from the Gulf Coast have raised her chances of replacing Katie, Peter, or Dan. . . Don Evans broke his collarbone while biking with Bush. . . Michael Brown is looking for a job in public relations. [USN&WR]
• Inside the Beltway: Friedman, McCullough top lawmakers’ reading lists. [WT]
• Page Six: Michael Moore, Sean Penn helping Katrina relief. [NYP]