Once a scumbag, always a scumbag.
(Vanity Fair) — It’s 10:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of the fall congressional term, and Diana Davis, staff assistant to Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), is networking in the dark depths of Politiki, a Capitol Hill bar.
. . . Then Caroline, the aspiring journalist, feisty and hungry to taste everything Washington has to offer before returning to Britain, settles it. Leaning back, she taps the balding guy on the arm as he returns from the men’s room. “What’s going on in there? Why are you all having so much fun?” she asks.
The man grins. “Those are a group of congressmen who are friends of mine. I thought they were hungry. They needed to kind of let themselves go.” He pauses. “And they are doing that.
“Come in and meet the rowdy crew,” he says. And with a toss of her hair, Caroline stands up and goes in.
The women are heckled as they enter. “Tell us your name and where you are from,” says one of the men. As if on a game show the women comply, one by one. When Caroline says she is an intern, the largest of the group, a white-haired man with a big belly and big laugh, roars, “We’re afraid of interns.” He throws his knife at a lean man named Mike, at the other end of the table. Mike is unamused. He threatens to throw it back. Another guy, rotund and jolly-faced, stands up and does an impression of Marlon Brando doing Don Corleone. The others think it’s hysterical.
Diana whispers that there is no way they can be congressmen. She figures they are businessmen. She wonders how she is going to get out.
They are congressmen—although at first they pretend not to be. One, the youngest, with a tiny goatee, introduces himself as Anthony, an auto-parts salesman. The others call him “the Jewish kid” and make fun of his beard. Their real names and states are as follows: the auto-parts salesman is Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.); the lean Mike is Michael Capuano (D-Mass.); the jolly guy who imitated Brando is John Larson (D-Conn.); the man who was worried about interns is Robert Brady (D-Pa.).
The next day, New York’s Anthony Weiner finds the time to hunt down Diana’s E-mail address. He writes that he hopes they might meet again. Diana is overwhelmed that he’s managed to think of her on a day that must be heavy with import and emotional intensity. Last night he mentioned that he’d be going to Manhattan to inspect the World Trade Center wreckage with the president. They’d be traveling together on Air Force One.
Caroline records: “Went for lunch with Diana. Anthony Weiner has emailed her and she didn’t know he was a member of Congress. She died when I showed her his card! It was so funny!! I think she likes him, but she doesn’t want to admit it. In fact, I know she likes him ’cos she’s been on his website this afternoon looking at the photo gallery.”
HT: Mediaite