Previously: How to Sneak Into Bloomberg

Vanity Fair has come crawling back to DC. After an eight year absence, they’re once again throwing a White House Correspondents Association dinner afterparty. And, like in the olden days, it is to be held at Chris Hitchens’ alcohol-infused, highly-flammable house. MORE »

* Reliable Source: Everyone skipped work and went to the Nats opener yesterday, except you, sucker. [WP]
* Yeas and Nays: Yoko Ono said some stuff about peace, cherry blossoms, etc… Tammy Haddad is having her 10th-annual pre-WHCD brunch. [Examiner]
* Under the Dome: [The Hill]
* Shenanigans: “Ron Kaufman - the Chairman of Dutko Worldwide and a top Mitt Romney advisor” — forced by rowdy Nats crowd to kiss some poor woman for their amusement… PETA writes Karl Rove a sarcastic letter about how bad his animal-killing joke bombed… The damn WHCD coverage and previewing is here. [Politico]
* Page Six: Sheryl Crow showed up to Dick Durbin’s office wearing an elephant. [NYP]

* CIA Director Porter Goss called it quits this week, and didn’t make up a reason for leaving. Not even the standard “time with my family” excuse, which of course makes us think it had something to do with the hookers or the gambling and payola. Anyway, he’s back on the gulf shore already, and everyone is waiting to hear who the next shady character to take over the job is going to be. MORE »

* Where the hell is the Stephen Colbert video from the WHCA dinner? That video is now available on “public service” C-SPAN’s website for $24.95. Thanks cable industry! [Boing Boing] MORE »

How you like that? We show a bunch of smarmy New Yorkers nothing but hospitality, and how do they repay us? By running three smarmy pieces about how lame our big party was on Saturday in their smarmiest and most financially unstable paper. Sure, we love the attention, but the Observer seems to be acting all superior to us just because they’re skinnier and dress better.

First off, Chris Lehmann’s review of the Prom reception, dinner, and afterparty. We remember him skulking around Bloomberg — seemed like a shifty and untrustworthy sort. But this anecdote rings true to us:

The day’s festivities stretched all the way back to noon, with the kickoff brunch hosted by MSNBC producer Tammy Haddad. The defining moment of that event was the arrival of former Niger Ambassador Joe Wilson, husband of C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame. He walked up Ms. Haddad’s slate sidewalk in D.C.’s swank Palisades neighborhood; he sported a Palm Beach-style untucked Hawaiian shirt and brandished a cigar. He approached the tent where D.C.’s various media personages, pols and celebrity-esque hangers-on congregated.

Mr. Wilson took a quick, disenchanted look at his lit stogie and tossed it into Ms. Haddad’s flowerbed.

It wasn’t a gesture of confrontation so much as simple ambient sourness. But it served as another signature moment, six years into a flailing Bush Presidency, where the Washington zeitgeist might best be summed up in two words: “Fuck it.”

Hell, we’ll agree with that. We’re pretty sure the only person in Washington who still likes their job is Patrick Fitzgerald.

After the jump, the assault continues with a knock on our style and a trip to an Adams-Morgan Young Republican party.

MORE »

* Republicans in Congress settle on $70B tax-cut package as proposal for $100 gas vouchers withers; Bush “implored lawmakers to deliver an agreement he could tout.” [WP, WP, NYT]
* Immigration rallies apparently made little influence on Congress. [NYT]
* Democrats aim to pick up House seats in the Northeast. [NYT]
* Bush may have sung a Spanish version of the national anthem at a campaign event. [WP]
* House votes on lobbying reform today. [USAT]
* Administration is testing “antisatellite weapons.” [NYT]
* Democrats threaten to filibuster one, maybe two, conservative judicial nominations. [WP]
* Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is on a one-man mission to eliminate earmarks from the emergency spending bill. [WP]
* The Supreme Court under John Roberts has become more contemplative and patient. [NYT]
* Blogosphere bloviates about Stephen Colbert’s performance. [NYT]

Yesterday we posted this photo of RNC chair Ken Mehlman, dancing up a storm at the Bloomberg afterparty: MORE »

* Under the Dome: Justice Antonin Scalia drunk Corona and mingled with actress Doris Roberts at the Bloomberg party before looking “uncomfortable” with Ludacris. . . Meanwhile, Ludacris doesn’t care about Steve Scully. . . Anna Kournikova and Drew Lachey were among the no-shows. [The Hill]
* Heard on the Hill: “A longtime aide to a senior Democratic Senator” stole George Clooney’s place card. . . Cartoonist/author Anthony Haden-Guest fell asleep during Stephen Colbert’s routine. . . Court TV is opening a D.C. bureau. [Roll Call]
* Reliable Source: Bush’s low approval rating equal good business for impersonator Steve Bridges: “If they’re too high, people get nervous: ‘Is it okay to make fun of the president?’”. . . Bloomberg reporter Janine Zacharia scores a private lunch with Condoleezza Rice and Tiki Barber at the State Department. [WP]
* Page Six: Blind item asks, “Which Democratic party moneybags is getting divorced because he diddled with a candidate’s daughter? To cap it off, his wife, the mother of his children then had a go with her personal trainer (a woman).” [NYP]
* Rush & Molloy: Ken Mehlman: “I’m not gay. But those stories did a number on my dating life for six months.” [NYDN]

Shortly after the picture was taken, with a brief whisper from Mr. Secretary, Patrick Gavin developed an uncontrollable desire to secretly bomb some southeast Asians. MORE »

We’ve given the WHCD festivities lavish treatment in these pages (click here, scroll down). But our coverage up to this point has omitted one of the biggest pleasures of the D.C. party circuit: MORE »