News & Politics

Our October 2014 Guest List

A monthly roundup of people we'd like to have over for drinks, food, and conversation.

Photo-illustration by John Ueland. Photograph of Reyes-Gavilan courtesy of DC Public Library; Megan Smith by Steve Parsons/AP Photo; William Kennedy Smith by Jeff Malet Photography/Newscom; Foer by Pablo Sartor; Kolick by Kevin Leclaire/UltiPhotos; Helderman courtesy of The Washington Post.

About Guest List

Guest List is Washingtonian’s fantasy cast of who we’d like to invite over for dinner each month.

1. Richard Reyes-Gavilan

The DC Public Library’s new chief has a mandate to turn the decrepit but historic Mies van der Rohe-designed Martin Luther King Jr. library into a bustling flagship for the new-media era.

2. Megan Smith

We want to ask the Google executive named to replace Todd Park as the nation’s chief technology officer how she’ll balance privacy issues with the industry’s know-all, see-all impulses.

3. William Kennedy Smith

With his 1991 rape acquittal a distant memory (he hopes), the Kennedy scion and Foggy Bottom physician is running for an Advisory Neighborhood Commission seat in DC.

4. Esther Foer

The executive director of Sixth & I, a historic synagogue rededicated ten years ago, has created a multigenerational, multidenominational cultural hub that has revived a landmark.

5. Alan Kolick

An offensive star for Washington’s Ultimate Frisbee team, DC Current, the Arlington native was named Eastern Conference MVP on the Current’s way to the league national championship.

6. Rosalind Helderman

The Washington Post correspondent broke the story of Governor Bob McDonnell’s relationship with Jonnie Williams, always seeing the bigger issue in every sordid turn.

Photograph by Steve Helber/AP Photo.

Disinvited: Henry Asbill

His risky “she was a witch” defense turned Bob and Maureen McDonnell’s marriage into tabloid fodder without explaining the guv’s “can I get another $20,000?” texts.

This article appears in the October 2014 issue of Washingtonian.