(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial
Sources.)
Mike Allen’s
obsequious, pay-to-play Playbook
newsletter was once hailed by The New York Times as
a must-read for Washington’s “elite set of political and news-media thrivers
and strivers.” For me, it’s most useful as a shameless chronicle of
what that elite group cares about — and how it lives.
In particular, Allen frequently documents how intimately and
seamlessly connected the members of the media aristocracy are with other
members of Washington’s ruling elite, whether they come from the intelligence
community, the super-wealthy, big banks, the lobbying community, or top levels
of government.
To the elite media itself, all this is just
background noise. But I’m increasingly thinking the noise is the signal.
Allen had a canonical example in in Sunday’s
edition:
CHARLIE ROSE’S WASHINGTON:
Charlie Rose, the man who’s always working, [but
never does any homework] got to just enjoy himself last night – tieless, and
rocking sneakers. D.C. friends walked down a red carpet to the elegant terrace
of the rarely seen estate of Franco Nuschese, owner of Café Milano, who was
honoring Charlie with a dinner celebration and garden party after he delivered
the Georgetown commencement address and received an honorary doctorate of
humane letters.
Franco’s three and a half acres, in the
Northwest D.C. neighborhood of Forest Hills, include a view down the same hill
as the Italian ambassador’s residence. In a toast, Charlie said Franco is the
best traveling companion in Italy – aside from two of the evening’s guests, CIA
Director John Brennan and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell.
–SPOTTED: Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba, Don
Baer and Nancy Bard, Bret and Amy Baier, CIA Director John Brennan and Kathy
Pokluda Brennan, Charlie Cook, Jan Crawford, Henry Davis, E.J. Dionne, Tom
Donilon, Jim and Deb Fallows, Tom and Ann Friedman, Georgetown College Dean
Chester Gillis, Tammy Haddad, Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff, Walter and Cathy
Isaacson, Chris and Jennifer Isham, Vernon and Ann Jordan, Tommy Kaplan,
Jonathan Karl, Katty Kay, Samantha Kulok, Jennifer Lawson of Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, Margot McGinness, Frank Milwee, Michael Morell, Norah
O’Donnell and Geoff Tracy, Roxanne Roberts, John F.W. Rogers, Sally Quinn,
Hilary Rosen and Campbell Spencer, Chelsea Royal, David Sanger, Bob and Pat
Schieffer, Justin Smith, Ellen Tauscher, George Tenet and Stephanie
Glakas-Tenet, Yvette Vega, Chitra Wadhwani and more.
–WHAT FRANCO SERVES AT HOME: hand-carved
prosciutto; eggplant parmesan; roasted sea scallops, eggplant and basil;
buffalo mozzarella; pecorino cheeses; roasted veal in tuna sauce; assorted cold
cuts; calamarata pasta, fresh oregano, tomatoes and zucchini; oysters; steamed
shellfish with vegetables; mixed greens salad; octopus, peaches, green beans
and mint salad; tuna, salmon and amberjack tartar; plus a bar and desserts.
A lot of those names are widely recognizable from
your TVs, being prominent media figures, political fixers, and national
security advisers: Brett Baier of Fox News, E.J. Dionne of The Washington
Post, Tom Friedman and David Sanger of The New York Times,
Al Hunt of Bloomberg, Judy Woodruff of PBS, Jonathan Karl of ABC, Norah
O’Donnell of NBC, Bob Schieffer of CBS, Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute,
Tom Donilon the national security adviser, etc.
But some are possibly only familiar to readers of
Playbook. Consider: that Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba is from the
United Arab Emirates; Don Baer is worldwide chair and chief executive officer
of the strategic communications firm Burson-Marsteller and chair of the
research firm Penn Schoen Berland; Tom Kaplan, I’m gonna guess, is this billionaire
mining investor (UPDATE: This may be poor guesswork on my part, in part due to bad
spelling on Mike Allen’s, as I’m now informed by email that there was a Tommy
Caplan at the party, a non-billionaire area novelist.
Of course maybe they were both there); John F.W. Rogers “might
be one of the most important people at Goldman Sachs“; and, as Allen
put it, more.
I have to wonder: Was there any tension between
members of the media who were there, and other guests?
Did people talk politics? Were there any visible or
audible signs of discomfort or disagreement? Did the powerful political players
spend one second worried that the media figures might ask them an uncomfortable
question? Or did everyone just mingle and share friendly chatter?
Sitting there, eating hand-carved prosciutto and
octopus salad, was there a palpable sense of a common bond?
If it were me, I’d go right up to Brennan and
call him a goddamned
liar, ask him why he won’t own up to the CIA’s
role in torture, what he’s got
on Obama, and why he doesn’t resign
immediately in shame. Of course, that’s probably one of the many
reasons why I’m not invited in the first place.
Sometimes people ask me: Why do smart, elite
journalists quote people who they know are lying, or being moronically stupid,
but not call what they say lies and stupidities? Why do they engage in
split-the-difference false equivalence in political coverage that leaves
readers terribly uninformed about what’s really going on?
And I say: One big reason is the cocktail parties.
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