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The New D.C. Status Symbols
How can you tell if you're an Obama insider? Follow these simple rules.
Other towns may measure status by your address, your alma mater, your income, or your shoes, but in political Washington right now, there is only one barometer of anyone's importance: How close are you to Obama? Here's how to tell.
• You don't return press calls. Before the election, the Obama team treated the media like a favored pet, doling out scraps of news on a regular basis. Even lowly bloggers could expect an uninformative but cheeky email from Gibbs. Now, the pets have been banished to the yard, where we howl loudly and get overexcited just when we hear the owner jangling his keys.
• You have Axelrod's REAL instant message screen name. I am just assuming he doesn't still use the one I have.
Before the election, the Obama team treated the media like a favored pet. Now, the pets have been banished to the yard.
• You have an ankle injury from playing basketball with Reggie Love. We understand if you keep the Ace bandage on long after it's healed.
• You have something to do with the Center for American Progress. Founded by John Podesta in 2003, it started out as a kind of home for Clinton administration alumni. As Podesta's relationship with Obama has grown (he's now head of the transition), it's become one of the only local institutions with a direct line to the future residents and staff of the White House.
• There is a picture on the Internet of you gesturing lewdly at a cutout of Hillary Clinton—and you had to apologize to her for it. Because, let's face it, who DOESN'T have a picture of themselves gesturing lewdly at a cutout of Hillary Clinton, but only Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau has had to make a formal apology.
Wonkette emerita, political junkie, self-hating journalist, and author of Dog Days, Ana Marie Cox has worked for Time, Mother Jones, Suck, and most recently, Radar. Follow her on Twitter.
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bouillabaisse
Ana's hot. Like, Tina Fey hot
clarityinthedefaultworld
A little bitter are we? A friend of mine who went to work for a Washington non-profit organization years ago told me, it's just like high school. Of course the rules change. It's just like when the nerdy girl has a miraculous makeover and becomes prom queen, and her best friend takes off his dorky glasses to reveal major hottie. Ta-da! Now they're cool kids.
EileensHoot
Right on Ana...continue to march.
Enjoy seeing / hearing you on Rachel Maddox News..both of you are exceptional women.
Danbury
Please.
If someone were caught on film (esp. a Hillary Clinton supporter!) giving a cutout of Obama the finger, in addition to being called racist (goes without saying, but it'd be said), they'd be officially designated a heathen, heretic, witch, rhymes with witch (if female), banned from blogs like DailyKos and Huffington Post for not only their lack of reverence, deference and awe due this awesome god-like man who has basically reinstated the Clinton Administration but for their having the gall to express even the slightest negativity toward him.
I voted for him, but let's face it: Obama Democrats have adopted an eery Bush-like culture of devotion to the new leader.
Swannie
I think it is going to be cool to be uncool very soon .. of course some people will always be confused .......
theblender
danbury; I DON'T THINK SO... no cults... maybe devotion, but with a healthy warp and woof of balance... geesh.
TheByzantine
And these observations are important how?
michaelsc1954
I may never talk or rub elbows w/ the Washington Obama Elites,but if he and some peeps(lol) get this economy back on track I'll consider that as close as I care to come to any of them. Besides anything Obama does will be head over heels better than the 8 exhaustive,backpedalling,economy destroying regime of the Bush crime family.
bornfamous
"It's just like when the nerdy girl has a miraculous makeover and becomes prom queen, and her best friend takes off his dorky glasses to reveal major hottie. Ta-da! Now they're cool kids."
That didn't happen in my high school. What happened was, we graduated. And found out that high school is so, like, uncool.
TheRealist
Seems to me all you have to be is part of the fprmer Clinton administration - now that is CHANGE we can beleive in - woof woof LMAO! the wise man Rubin should be brought back immediately so he can engineer another way to make a few 100 million for he and his cronies while bankrupting the enitre country. And why not put Hillary at State? She has confirmed that she has Jewish blood, is a zionist, and knows how to deal with foreign countries while hiding the loot. Maybe she'ss finsih the job her husband couldn;t and sell California to China to help with the budget deficits. Why not - Bill already sold them the ports.....
magicman
Regardless, there is still the issue of what Obama himself referred to as "those in Government who are about the Business of Aggrandizement and there are those who are there to Serve". Serve is the order of the day.
nedracine
is there any writer who is more over than ms cox? i mean, she never has anything interestting to say, no work of any importance but believes she is so much more inside than she is. i think less of the db by having her on the home page.
perkins
Ana looks like Conan O'Brien in drag.
If they mated, the baby would be a Clonan O'Brien.
Downriver
Lighten up, Ana, they won't ignore you for long!
slemay
A pleasant, amusing blog. Some of the commentators have lost their perspectives, but it was fun. Good for you, AMC.
Thank you.
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