Maureen Orth (Russert's Wife) lets us have a look into DC life

ONe of the most vapid articles you will ever read. Long.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/12/socialDC200712?printable=true¤tPage=all

http://www.dailyhowler.com/

THE SOUND OF GLOVED HANDS CLAPPING: Once in a while, the glossy magazines give us a taste of High Insider Washington “Culture.” Vanity Fair offers the service this month, in a long report by Maureen Orth. Orth is Tim Russert’s wife.

In fairness, Orth is serving as the journalist here; she is simply reporting the inanity which forms the heart of her tedious article. But she wastes no time telling us, right at the start, that this is her milieu too. In her first paragraph, she recalls the good old day when she boated with Jackie. Right from the start, we get the message. Orth is a player too:
ORTH (12/07): Red Fay, undersecretary of the navy under John F. Kennedy, was a charming bon vivant, a great pal of the president’s, and the uncle of my roommate at Berkeley in the 60s. So it was my great good luck, on my very first trip to the capital, in May 1964, just six months after Kennedy’s assassination, to have “Uncle Red” invite me to dinner on the presidential yacht, the Sequoia. A few minutes after we arrived on board, I was amazed to see not only Jackie Kennedy but also Bobby and Ethel Kennedy and Jean Kennedy Smith and her husband, Steve Smith, walking up the gangplank. They were followed by George Stevens Jr., the youthful head of the U.S. Information Agency’s motion-picture division; the Peruvian ambassador and his wife; and my roommate’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles McGettigan, of San Francisco. This was one of Jackie’s first nights out since the tragedy, but she greeted everyone graciously. She was in ethereal white and spoke little during dinner, except to the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who was seated to her right.
The descriptions of Orth’s early social successes proceed apace from there. Soon, though, she gets to the consummate nonsense which forms the heart of her piece.

As far as we know, Orth was not to the manor born. (She served in the Peace Corps after college.) And her husband does come from working-class Buffalo—a world whose superior values he flogs in books he writes in his Nantucket cottage, just down the rose-cover ed lane a splash from Jack Welch, his long-time owner. But then, Russert and Orth have worked very hard to become top players in Insider Washington, according to D.C. insider Chuck Conconi. Again, here’s part of that rare, semi-penetrating profile of Russert by USA Today’s Peter Johnson:
JOHNSON (11/1/00): As a child, "I always wondered what it was like in Washington and the world," says Russert, who since Labor Day has shed 20-plus pounds from his bulky frame. But he says he never would have dreamed, helping Sister Mary Lucille put out a mimeographed special edition on President Kennedy's death, that one day he would grill national leaders.

Colleagues and competitors see it differently. They say that Russert, a lawyer who served as a top aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., and New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, also a Democrat, before joining NBC in 1984, has always had an intuitive sense of how to get ahead and has worked hard to get there. He is, they say, a player.

"I've never seen anyone work this town the way they did," Washingtonian writer Chuck Conconi says of Russert and his wife, Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth, who live in Washington's tony Cleveland Park in a house that has a media pedigree: Previous owners include PBS' Charlie Rose, NBC's Tom Brokaw and New York Times columnist James Reston.

Conconi recalls a tale about Russert and Orth being spotted at a cheap hamburger joint in Georgetown after an exclusive party at Pamela Harriman's house after President Clinton's first election. "They are masters of the Washington social scene. They know you don't go to parties to eat or drink. You go there to work." The anecdote may be apocryphal, Conconi says, "but I can't think of a story that rings more true.”
Sadly, Johnson’s profile—and Orth’s inane report—give us a (partial) picture of our multimillionaire press corps. Liberals need to come to terms—badly—with what this picture means.

For ourselves, we’ve never met Orth; we’ve chatted with Russert a couple of times, and yes, he’s the nicest guy in the world. But multimillions affect even nice people, even those whose spouses started out in the Peace Corps. Human nature makes it plain: You simply can’t have a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps. That’s especially true when that multimillionaire press corps works the way our current group does, with narratives invented at the top, then parroted by the eager young climbers who hope to be rich players too.

What happens in a middle-class nation when multimillionaires run the press corps? Citizens are handed perfect monstrosities, of the type they were served on last night’s Hardball. Chris Matthews is a Welch-endowed multimillionaire too; he too summers, with Jack, on the Island of Swells. In what follows, we see the kind of brain-rotted swill he dished to the rubes and the peons last night. Once again, Matthews was deeply troubled by videotape in which Hillary Clinton could be seen clapping her hands. He spoke with Julie Mason, Jonathan Capehart and Matt Continetti, a trio of fresh-faced, eager young climbers who would never dream of telling their host that he’s a certified nut-case.

Dozoretz, who constantly touted her close, personal relationship with Bill Clinton and pledged to raise $1 million for the Clinton library, is a onetime garment-industry executive married to Ron Dozoretz, a psychiatrist and the C.E.O. of a behavioral-health-care company that is heavily dependent on state contracts and that has been criticized in the past for providing substandard services. He contributes to both Republicans and Democrats. His wife first became known to the public when she took the Fifth Amendment before Congress in order not to have to answer questions about her role in the Marc Rich pardon. Last February, Clinton friends were taken aback when the Dozoretzes hosted a fund-raiser for New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, a presidential candidate, but that should not have been surprising considering the contract for a reported $325 million that Ron Dozoretz’s FHC Health Systems has in New Mexico. Beth Dozoretz is said to phone media outlets to tout her parties and ask to be included on “A-lists,” and in the middle of dinners she allegedly confers with her husband to discuss whom they’ve spoken with and whom they should cultivate.

Lady Catherine Meyer, wife of the former British ambassador Sir Christopher Meyer: Poor Beth. She did try to invite us all the time.

Buffy Cafritz: Beth Dozoretz? Enough said.

Buffy Cafritz: Catherine Reynolds has left behind a trail of broken friendships. This I will never be able to understand. She has none of the old relationships. The Daschles are now her best friends. I can go through seven people she’s dumped. Nobody understands her. She goes to the ladies’ room and her husband stands outside. Why not? She’s the bank.

Rima Al-Sabah: We came to Washington three weeks before September 11, and what happened was a shock. On September 12, I had a lunch invitation. I didn’t think anyone would go, but the hostess said, “No, we want to show life goes on.” The first question I was asked was “Did you see what you Arabs did?” I was horrified. So it is very important to change the stereotype. All countries have extremists.… After September 11 there became a need to be out there. I do big dinners for 120 or 140 and small dinners for 22 around a table. Entertaining is a crucial part of diplomatic work. I do four big dinners a year and small dinners twice a month and lunches.… A big dinner is a whole production. A successful party is not only a mix of beautiful setting and good food but who’s on the chairs. The seating is very important. I always seat a guest next to one person they know and one they don’t, but might be interested in. I didn’t use to invite so much in advance, but then I started getting invitations two and three months ahead. You don’t have to for small dinners as much, but for big dinners it’s better.

Buffy Cafritz: Rima is the leading diplomatic hostess. She asks you to attend six months in advance. When my brother was asked to attend four months in advance, he said, “No, I’ll be attending a funeral.”

:rofl:

:eyes: sorry to make fun of a name but geesh you have to be in a bubble for someone not to have ever pointed out how stupid that sounds.

Note-not mentioned but surely part of this set is Cokie Roberts-they actually let her get on the air (most have better pills)

oh and this killed me ...and apparently I'm nto the only one

Polly Kraft, painter, widow of syndicated columnist Joseph Kraft and power-broker attorney Lloyd Cutler

Wow stay away from that one! :scared:


Laurie Firestone, social secretary to George Herbert Walker Bush from 1988 to 1992 and author of An Affair to Remember: State Dinners for Home Entertaining

My wife and I clearly are NOT having enough State Dinners

here last night. I found it an interesting read. From the Jackie O days when culture was important to lobbyiests now when fundraising rules.