Blog Spat
Roll Call Staff
The denizens of Capitol Hill and the blogosphere are all abuzz about a female staffer for Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and a webblog she reportedly maintained detailing her busy, busy sex life. The tale is now reaching critical mass.
Mike Dawson, DeWine’s communications director, said the staffer in question has not been fired, as has been alleged. DeWine’s staff is looking into the matter and deciding what, if any, steps they will take, according to Dawson.
“People made us aware of this yesterday,” said Dawson in an interview Wednesday afternoon. Although the staffer in
question was not at work on Wednesday, “she has not been terminated,” said Dawson. DeWine’s office could offer little information on the issue beyond that because it “remains a personnel matter” and is thus a “very sensitive area,” Dawson added.
The controversial blog, Washingtonienne, has been deactivated (HOH wants to warn readers about pretenders to the Washingtonienne mantle) but fellow blogger Wonkette has been on a mission to get the story out. Wonkette’s editor, Ana Marie Cox, had linked to the now-defunct blog, and it was that increased exposure that apparently led to the scrutiny from DeWine’s office.
In her blog, Washingtonienne — who described herself as a staff assistant, or “Staff Ass” — wrote about the extensive cast of men she was involved with. At one point, Washingtonienne created a helpful “key” so readers could keep it all straight. The list included: “X,” a “married man who pays me for sex” and is “Chief of Staff at one of the gov agencies, appointed by [President] Bush”; “QV,” her serious long-term boyfriend, but who looked as if he was on the way out; “YZ,” her “new office [boyfriend] with whom I am embroiled in an office sex scandal”; and “K,” a “sugar daddy” who also paid her for kinky sex.
Washingtonienne was full of ribald and hilarious comments about life on Capitol Hill before it was cut off. In complaining about her low salary, and her wonderment at how other junior staffers could get by on such a pittance without resorting to less savory means to supplement their incomes, Washingtonienne wrote: “I am convinced that Congressional offices are full of dealers and hos.”
Washingtonienne also spoke of local hot spots, her passion for the UPN show “America’s Next Top Model,” and “getting wasted” and passing out on her kitchen floor, which may not endear her to the higher ups in DeWine’s office.
As the “Washingtonienne Affair” reaches it denouement, HOH is reminded of the controversy surrounding the legendary Diana Davis, a former aide to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) who was the star of a salacious Vanity Fair article back in the fall of 2001. The then-22-year-old Davis was forced out of Rogers’ office after telling Vanity Fair that she slept with someone because he “knew [Rep.] Tom DeLay (R-Texas.).”
Davis also partied with a bunch of Members on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history, an anecdote that stunned lots of people of Capitol Hill.
Davis resigned after the Vanity Fair article came out in early November 2001.
House Barrier. Following Tuesday’s incident in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair was hit with a purple, powderish substance while addressing the House of Commons, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), has unveiled his own plan to prevent a similar incident here: Installing a barrier around the House floor, protecting lawmakers from the public galleries surrounding the chamber.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter he circulated yesterday afternoon, Burton, the former chairman of the then-Government Reform and Oversight Committee, acknowledged that there have been numerous security fixes to the Capitol campus since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but noted that lawmakers were still exposed to potential threats when on the House floor.
“However, one security upgrade that has not yet been addressed concerns the vulnerability of the House of Representative’s visitors’ galleries,” wrote Burton. “That is why I intend to introduce legislation authorizing the Architect of the Capitol to enclose the House of Representatives visitors’ galleries with a transparent and substantial material to close this potential security loophole.”
Potts: Congress Must Not Allow Lobbying Efforts to Block Pro-Consumer Financial Planning Bill
March 18, 12:35 p.m.
Quietly hidden amid debates over which agency should house a consumer financial protection agency is a simple consumer financial protection proposal. It would safeguard Main Street residents from malpractice by people claiming to be financial planners. Read Full Article
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