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Monday, June 11, 2012

This is an actual column in a major metropolitan newspaper
Posted by Jill | 7:28 PM


Sally Quinn haz a sad:

In April, at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, my husband, Ben Bradlee, and I found ourselves sandwiched between the Kardashians and Newt and Callista Gingrich. Heavily made up and smiling for the cameras, the reality TV family and the political couple were swarmed over by the paparazzi, who were screaming and shouting the celebrities’ names to make them look toward the cameras for that million-dollar photograph.

I was shoved up against Callista’s hair and nearly broke my nose. It was scary. I felt as if I had been caught in a crowded theater and someone had yelled fire. Ben and I (he spouting expletives all the way), grabbed onto each other and managed to escape to the equally crowded hallway where desperate celebrity guests were heading toward the ballroom, murmuring to us as they passed, “Get me out of here.”

It was telling that Vanity Fair had bought more tables at the dinner than most of the Washington news organizations.

On the way home (we skipped the after-parties), I suddenly realized that this grotesque event signaled the end of power as we have known it. That dinner — which seemed to have more celebrities, clients and advertisers than journalists and politicians — was the tipping point.

As Tom Brokaw noted the next day on “Meet the Press,” it’s time to rethink the “glittering” annual dinner. The event, he said, “separates the press from the people they’re supposed to serve, symbolically.”

The decline of power has been happening for a while. In 1987, I wrote a piece for this magazine called “The Party’s Over.” In it, I chronicled the demise of the Washington hostess. That was 25 years ago, and people were complaining even then that Washington would never be the same.

But power still trumped money in those days. Today, money trumps power. If Katharine Graham, the late publisher of The Washington Post, were having a party today, and politicians or statesmen received a conflicting invitation to a party put together by Sheldon Adelson (Gingrich’s super PAC guy), where do you think people would go? Adelson. No question. Now, at a party, if you find people staring over your shoulder to see who’s more important in the room, they’re usually looking at someone rich, rather than someone powerful. (Or perhaps they’re staring at themselves in a mirror, as I once observed.)

Power in Washington used to be centered on the White House, the Congress, the Cabinet, the diplomatic corps and the journalists. Today, all of those groups depend on money for their very existence. The real power lies with the lobbyists, the money-raisers, the super PACs, the bundlers, the corporations and rich people. The hottest ticket on the planet is not an invitation to the White House but an invitation to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The irony is that in New York, I’m told, people are interested in power. In Washington, people are interested in money.

Think about it. The White House’s power comes from the money people give the president. He wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for his big donors. He had a Hollywood fundraiser last month  at George Clooney’s house where he raised $15 million. Those are the people who count. If the president thought that there was real power in Washington, that the Congress, the diplomatic corps or the journalists could help him in any way, then he and the first lady would surely go out more often.

The Obamas have been roundly criticized for not being part of the Washington social scene. The question is, does it matter? Could Obama win or lose the presidency because he has dissed the Washington community? I suspect the answer is no. It doesn’t matter anymore.

It's about damn time, if you ask me. But someone had better tell David Gregory and Chuck Todd, who still think nibbling cocktail weenies (interpret that however you like) at the Sally Quinn Salon means something. (via TBogg. Also, too.)

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4 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Saw this on Tbogg. What a weird and disconnected world these people live in. That you would even say these things out loud.
6/11/12, 8:13 PM  
Blogger D. said...
Do you know how hard it is to carve the World's Tiniest Violin on a subatomic particle? But good ol' Sal deserves the best.

Maybe I should have made the bow first.
6/12/12, 2:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...
Poor Sally. She realizes too late the feudalism is dead...and the serfs ain't listenin' to the lords and masters...
6/12/12, 1:14 PM  
Anonymous southern Beale said...
Clearly you haven't read David Brooks' column today. Here, just check out the highlights.

And Gawker has an insane piece up from Richard Cohen. Clearly someone slipped some LSD into the Villagers' water supply.
6/12/12, 2:15 PM  
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