What: Opening night for Richard III

Where: Dinner at Pavilion restaurant and opening night performance at Shakespeare Theatre.

Who:  Shakespeare Theatre attracts the bold face intelligensia.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rarely misses an opening night—although she skipped the dinner beforehand.  Shakespeare’s billionaire benefactor Sidney Harman brought Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and his wife Meryl—after all, what would a Washington event be without an omnipresent security detail? Harmon’s other guests included Sen. Susan Collins.  Rep. Jane Harmon didn’t arrive until intermission—the House was still voting during dinner and Act I.  Also spotted in the crowd of first nighters were Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer, George Washington University President Steve Trachtenberg, University of Maryland President CD Mote, a dateless Jim Kimsey, and former DC Mayor Anthony Williams.

Food: The main course featured a hunk of lamb shank—just the thing for a play about meat eaters.

Scene: At the dinner, Williams and his wife Diane were crowned for their support of the arts. The crowns were last worn by the King and Queen of France in the theater's production of Henry V. The Chertoffs and their security detail slipped away at intermission.

Ratings:
Bold Face names: 4 (out of 5)
Swankiness: 4 (out of 5)
Food/Drinks: 4 (out of 5)
Exclusivity: 4 (out of 5)

Total Score: 16 (out of 20)

Tuesday was a miserable day for the 34th Annual March for Life, a pro-life rally commemorating the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Throughout the march, the sun hid, the wind blew, and thermometers scraped freezing. Nevertheless, when it came to marching on the Capitol, even the Mall’s seagulls walking on thin ice got their feet wet.

Anti-Roe v. Wade marchers protested with chants, harmonized choral arrangements, and—in the case of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property—bagpipes. They came from the country’s coasts and heartlands and wore college sweatshirts from Harvard, Princeton, Ohio State, and University of New Hampshire. Dozens of coach buses lined up on the Mall waited to carry them back to the corner of the country from which they came.

In the march, there was no single norm. Participants ran the gamut from those who probably have yet to learn where babies come from to those whose babies must be adults by now. There were nuns, Franciscan monks, and yuppie-in-training Catholic schoolgirls who walked in Uggs and sipped from Starbucks cups. 

Nor was there one, standard protest sign to carry.  “Abortion=Genocide in the African-American Community,” read a placard held by a few black marchers. “Brownback for President,” read others. One read, “I’m Adopted. Would you kill me?”  And, for those who forgot to pack, there were teenage street vendors hawking “Abortion is Mean” t-shirts—one for $20, two for $30.

Slowly but surely, the massive march made its ponderous way from the Mall, up Constitution Ave., and finally to the Supreme Court. The high school boys of St. Gregory’s Academy in Scranton, Penn., chanted again and again, “The gang’s all here.” And so, right now, is Roe v. Wade.

Numerous venues and organizations are hosting parties to watch President George W. Bush's State of the Union address tonight.  Whatever your political orientation, there are places where you can congregate with like-minded people to watch the speech.  The big event will be televised at 9 p.m. at the following locations:

PARTIES SPONSORED BY ORGANIZATIONS

WHO: Arlington Young Democrats & Alexandria Young Democrats
WHAT: State of the Union Watching Party including State of the Union Bingo (likely keywords? "Iraq," "terror(ist)," "victory") with prizes for all winners and the person who brings the most guests.
WHERE: Bailey's Pub & Grille, back room
4238 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22203
WHEN: 7 - 11 p.m.
CONTACT: (703) 867-5070

WHO: DC for Democracy, with attendees from Drinking Liberally
WHAT: SOTU watching.
WHERE: Marty’s Restaurant
527 Eighth St. SE
Washington, DC 20003
WHEN:  7:30 – 10 p.m.
CONTACT: RSVP online.

WHO: The Capitol Hill Club
WHAT: Enjoy a buffet, drinks, and Republican schmoozing at the landmark conservative social club. Cost: $39.50, plus a tax and service charge.
WHERE: 300 1st St. SE, 4th floor
Washington, DC 20003
WHEN: Doors open at 6 p.m.
CONTACT: (202) 484-4590

BAR GATHERINGS

WHO: Union Pub
WHAT: Expect a Hill crowd to gather for “The Original Ladies Night Tuesdays” and for 1/2 price buffalo wings & $8 domestic pitchers. The SOTU address will be on, with sound, on TVs and a projection screen.  Union Pub was packed on election night, with a fair chance of being packed again tonight.
WHERE: 201 Massachusetts Ave. NE
Washington, DC 20002
WHEN: Ladies drink free from 5 - 7 p.m. on rail and draft beer. Last call is at 1:30 a.m.
CONTACT: (202) 546-7200

WHO: Hawk and Dove
WHAT: Birds of many Hill feathers will flock together for Happy Hour Specials and for the SOTU on TV.  Hawk and Dove is usually standing room only for SOTU nights.
WHERE: 329 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC 20003
WHEN: Happy hour specials 5 p.m. - 9 p.m: Bud Ice,  $2.00, Pint of the Night (selected microbrew) for $3.25, Tuesday Buffalo & Beer Special: 12 buffalo wings for a $1.00 , a pint of Miller Lite for $2.
CONTACT: (202) 543-3300

WHO: Capitol Lounge
WHAT: SOTU viewing and 10-cent wings from 9 PM to close at the lounge.
WHERE:  231 Pennsylvania Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20003
WHEN: 9 p.m. to close.
CONTACT: (202) 547-2098

WHO: Lounge 201
WHAT: Half-price martinis and a new "Wave the Flag" martini. SOTU with audio in the couch-filled "Executive Lounge" and silenced SOTU on flat-screen TVs in the front bar area.
WHERE:  201 Massachusetts Ave. NE
Washington, DC 20002
WHEN: Specials run from 4 p.m. - close at 2 a.m.
CONTACT: (202) 544-5201

WHO: Busboys and Poets
WHAT: Open Mic Poetry hosted by Mikuak Rai and featuring Simba, $3 admission, followed by a SOTU screening and then an open discussion.
WHERE:  2021 14th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
WHEN: Open Mic: 8 p.m.-9 p.m. Open discussion begins after the SOTU speech ends.
CONTACT: (202) 387-7638

WHO: Ventnor Sports Cafe
WHAT: $1 shots every time President Bush says a designated word of your choice.
WHERE: 2411 18th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009
WHEN: 9 p.m.
CONTACT:  (202) 234-3070
 
Click here for HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS THROUGHOUT DC.

Here are your eight highlights from the 2008 presidential campaign trail for this week. Memorize this column each Friday and you'll be able to hold your own with any full-time political operative at a cocktail party over the weekend. 

The run-down: 

1) Barack Obama, to the surprise of almost no one but consternation of many, leapt into the presidential race this week. When we say this changes everything, we mean everything. This is the worst news possible for just about every other Democratic candidate, and it's particularly good news for John McCain—the more the press and attention is focused on the Democratic race, the easier it will be for McCain to win the Republican nomination. Mitt Romney needs air to breathe and to grow stronger. With Obama in the race, it'll be that much harder for any other candidate—Republican or Democratic—to surge.

2) Hillary Clinton didn't get into the race. There's nothing we can read into that except to say that every week she waits will make it harder. The first challenge is fund-raising and the FEC has very strict rules about how much she can raise before she has to declare. With John Edwards and Obama both in, they're spending each day raising money and getting a head start. Can she catch up? Most assuredly, but in an election as competitive as this one promises to be, a head start is a head start.

3) Two major constituencies of the parties are both still trying to figure out who their candidate should be. With former Virginia Governor Mark Warner out of the race—who wooed bloggers with an $80,000 party on top of the Stratosphere in Las Vegas last summer during a blogger convention—bloggers aren't sure which Democratic candidate to support. Obama's not proving to be the progressive wunderkind they wanted him to be, and Clinton's too centrist. Edwards is making a strong push online. On the right, evangelicals and social conservatives are struggling to find a candidate within the GOP field. While many observers believe they'll eventually come 'round to Mitt Romney, right now Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Senator Sam Brownback are both looking good.

4) Iraq is still a problem for everyone. The sooner it goes away, the better it'll be for everyone (not least of all, the U.S. troops actually in Iraq). Hillary, who spent the weekend in Iraq and Afghanistan, is coming out strongly against the surge, while McCain is staking out the potentially dangerous territory of being one of the strongest supporters of President Bush's new plan. Obama is separating himself from Hillary and generally dancing around the issue as best he can. The Illinois powerhouse, who back in 2002, before it mattered was strongly anti-war, now appears to be a little unsure of himself. Hillary meanwhile, a late-comer to the anti-war cause, may end up being saddled with a John Kerry-like stance: She voted against the war after she voted for it.

When DC Mayor Adrian Fenty came to the city council this morning to introduce his landmark legislation to take over the city’s public schools, two council members were missing in action.

Ward 8 council member Marion Barry was absent. A visit to his office elicited this comment from his chief of staff: “Mr. Barry has a cold.” Further investigation found that Barry has been hospitalized with pneumonia.

New Ward 3 council member Mary Cheh was merely marked tardy. The hearing began at 9:30. Cheh showed up at 10:15, after her colleagues delivered their remarks and after Fenty gave his opening speech.

Cheh’s aide told me she was teaching a class at George Washington University Law School. She will be teaching the class through April, when she begins a sabbatical.

Until that time, her council work will be part-time.

At Nathans Restaurant in Georgetown, Bob Woodward sat beneath David Hume Kennerly’s iconic photo of former American presidents.  George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon smiled and waved above Woodward’s combed silver mane. But as Woodward’s light-sensitive tinted glasses gradually lost their opacity, the cheerful Presidents looked more and more like a row of sitting ducks.

"I'm scared of you," joked Nathans owner, former journalist Carol Joynt, as she introduced her guest. That didn’t stop Joynt from inviting Woodward to one of her weekly Q&A Cafes, a formal three-course lunch featuring an informal interview with a Washington newsmaker.

Flatscreen TVs allowed an overflow crowd squeezed into the bar a closed-circuit broadcast of the interview—as well as, before that, video of Woodward polishing off potato chips and scratching his nose.

But there were other pre-interview events to amuse diners: the deliveries of a small green salad, a plate of cheese tortellini with tomato cream sauce, and a lined blue notecard upon which diners could write questions for Ms. Joynt to ask.

The interview, structured as a fireside chat between Joynt and Woodward, revealed a side rarely seen of the famed Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who, with Carl Bernstein, was the force behind Watergate and three decades of insider Washington reportage. His latest book, "State of Denial," remains on best-seller lists.

Attendees—including Woodward tablemates AOL's Jim Kimsey and lawyer Sanford Ain—learned what Woodward does for fun (re-reading the Senate Watergate Report and listening to Nixon tapes in the car), where Woodward would have dropped his next Watergate revelation (a University of Texas conference that was canceled due to an ice storm), and what Woodward’s next book won’t be about (Watergate).

And Woodward would neither confirm nor deny just how many Presidential interviews like that with the late Gerald Ford might be on file in his secret storage location. Did Jimmy Carter spill the beans on the Iran hostage crisis? Did George Bush Sr. discuss his role in Iran-Contra or criticize his new best friend Bill Clinton? We'll have to wait and see.

Moving from past to future, Woodward conjectured as to why America has not suffered a terrorist attack since 9/11 while Iraq endures roughly 180 attacks a day. “Somebody has told them to wait,” he said, and cautioned listeners to brace themselves for “multiple high-end catastrophic attacks.” At least diners had warm tortellini for comfort. 

But the news went from bad to worse. Civil war in Iraq? “All Hell has broken through already,” Woodward claimed. A President with a clear grasp of the issues? “Idealism has become a screen, so he cannot see,” Woodward relayed. Supporting our troops? “I don’t think anyone’s backing them up enough, including the President and Executive Branch.”  It was hard not to give in to despair, even with the arrival of chocolate cake.

Still, there were lighter moments.  Woodward recalled a time when Rumsfeld aides called him indignantly regarding comparisons between their boss and Vietnam War architect Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. “Can you imagine how McNamara feels?” Woodward retorted.

Woodward closed on a more humbling note. Despite his prize-winning articles and books, his portrayal by Robert Redford in All the President's Men, and his vast repository of interview information locked in secure storage at an undisclosed location, Woodward keeps the words of Katharine Graham, the late owner of the Washington Post, close to heart. “Beware of the demon pomposity,” she once wrote. 

Beware the demon pomposity, indeed. And Presidents, beware Bob Woodward as well.

To view the webcast of the full interview, click here.

Who: E.L. Doctorow

What: PEN/Faulkner Reading Series

When: Friday, January 12, 2007

Last Friday a performance of King Lear at the Folger Theater, where E.L. Doctorow was scheduled to read, sent the writer across the street to the sanctuary of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation. Like a popular expelled pastor, the New York writer's flock followed him—and by the time he took to the podium, his bald head shining in the fractured streetlight that streamed through the stained glass windows, the pews were as packed as if it were a Sunday morning.

Few writers can bring people out like Doctorow. His novels such as Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and last year's The March have endeared him to generations of readers hungry for American epics and tired of the gadgetry and pomposity that pervades contemporary fiction.