Leonard Downie Jr. said he’d still be a busy fellow once he stepped down as Washington Post executive editor in early September. And here he is, just weeks later, in the prime spot in the Sunday Outlook section. Not reminiscing about his years atop the Post; not talking journo-ethics. Nope, he’s defending this fine city against all the attacks from the campaign trail. You know, the ones that ascribe all the great problems of America to Washington, D.C.

The signature line from Downie: “Large numbers of Washingtonians have dedicated much of their lives to real public service that does not involve the ego trips, trappings and hypocrisies of elective office.”

It’s a fine argument, and one that all locals need to read every four years, if only to leave something of a counterpoint in this otherwise counterpoint-less offensive. Funny thing, if there’s one notion that’s genuinely bipartisan these days it’s that Washington is a terrible place because of its partisanship.

Downie’s piece, however, does suffer from one colossal omission, having to do with the following sentence: “Never mind that the biggest mess in America today, the crisis in the financial markets, is largely the creation of the private sector, which has left it to Washington to clean up.”

“Largely,” here, is the key word, enabling the author to say, OK, maybe government shares some blame, but not the preponderance. The truth, as we’ve learned the hard way, is that this is the private sector teaming up with its toadies in the public sector to devise a financial sector virtually free of regulation. Government is way too culpable for this crisis to get anything approaching a bye.

And I must say that Downie had my civic pride in full blossom there at the end of the piece. But then he sneaked in a plug for his upcoming book, The Rules of the Game, and I kinda lost my municipal buzz.

*Just how desperate is James Gilmore in his battle for a Virginia senate seat?

*Do you believe that Obama is on the verge of a blowout victory?

*Blogger writes Pedestrian Plea, tells D.C. drivers to calm the f*** down.

*New Haven, looking great great in a photo illustration.

*I think we won’t soon hear the end of all this. It’s enough to make me want to skip town for the week.

*This’ll explain why Henry Paulson had such a nice weekend.

*OK, so the post is a week old, but it so embodies the humanity of the young professional class in the District.

*Maine: Preparing not for winter–but a hurricane?

*McCain is right: Could that have been the blunder of the 2008 campaign?

*The Examiner gives local theater some good play.

A couple of weeks ago, FishbowlDC broke the news that Leonard Downie Jr., the recently departed executive editor of the Washington Post, had registered to vote after a prolonged absence from the rolls. As the paper’s top editor, Downie had declined to cast ballots because the very act would force him to decide who’d best serve as president, mayor, councilmember, ANC commissioner, etc., thereby potentially corrupting his objectivity as a newsman.

Though widely acknowledged as an act of ethical purity, Downie’s gesture was also viewed as an act of lunacy. In 2000, Slate’s Michael Kinsley skewered the policy thusly: “Downie is certainly right that there is no point in not voting officially if you’re voting mentally. But in concluding that he therefore shouldn’t even vote mentally, he is buying into the fallacy that having an opinion is the same as having a bias.”

I always felt that Downie’s abstemiousness was a bit much. But let’s give credit where it’s due: Though some readers would disagree with me, I generally felt that the news coverage under his watch was neutral and objective, and when it may not have been, there was never a case to be made that Downie had injected bias into the coverage. And for the sake of argument, let’s say that the paper’s fairness was solely a function of Downie’s refusal to vote in his head and in the booth.

Why would Downie continue practicing his brand of civic puritanism? That, after all, is the plan. Downie said in an interview this week that he wouldn’t be voting in the November elections despite his Sept. 5 voter registration. Flabbergasted at this revelation, I asked him, “What?”

He responded that he’d directed the presidential coverage for the past two years. Over e-mail, he elaborated: “I’m not voting in November because I’ve kept my mind open about the candidates and issues during two years or so of having ultimate responsibility for our campaign coverage, so I just don’t feel ready to vote in this election. I’ll have a clean slate after that.”

I’d hate to be charged with diagramming the logic behind that one.

In other Downie news, the guy has signed on as a client of the Knopf Speakers Bureau and has engagements lined up with some large universities–Arizona State, Indiana, Stanford–as well as with the Poynter Institute (journo-ethics central!) and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. You’re unlikely to see a paid appearance before the National Association of Manufacturers on Downie’s itinerary; he’s following Washington Post newsroom codes of conduct to avoid conflicts of interest. He commands as much as low five figures for his appearances.

“In terms of folks who know the news business in and out, Len would be at the top of most lists,” says Paul Bogaards, president of the Knopf Speakers Bureau. “He can certainly speak to the changing nature of the news industry and what form that might take in months and years to come.”

Downie’s novel, The Rules of the Game (Alfred A. Knopf), will be out in January.

The Washington Post burns through its share of paper. Its Sunday edition alone, bulked up by a sheath of advertising inserts and classified ads, can tip the scales at around 2½ pounds. That, of course, is just for the people who want it.

The Post Co. also distributes its brand to people who don’t request it. Logan Circle resident Michael Sirvet says he’s been getting something called the Washington Post Shopping Guide “forever.” When he finds the weekly promotional piece in his mailbox, he follows a simple routine that involves throwing it away.

The guide, however, became something more than an annoyance when Sirvet came back from a vacation. “I had 10 days of mail with these two papers smashed up,” says the 41-year-old Sirvet. “It was getting in the way of my other mail.”

The Post, for Sirvet at least, has turned into the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. He claims that since the beginning of this year, he’s called the paper more than 10 times in a futile effort to get himself removed from the mailing list. “The first couple of times, they were nice. After the third or fourth time, I asked to talk to a supervisor,” he says.

“”It just boggles my mind. It’s now kind of humorous in a Kafka–esque way.…It’s a waste of paper,” says Sirvet, a self-described “tree hugger.” After repeated pleas to the Post, Sirvet even called the U.S. Postal Service to ask whether it could stop a particular piece of mail from ending up in his box. The answer was no.

Rima Calderon, vice president for communications and external relations at the Post Co., declined to answer most questions about Sirvet and the shopping guide, including basic ones about who gets the guide and how many editions are mailed out each week. Calderon did say, however, that Sirvet is the only opt-out problem the guide’s staff is aware of.

Last week, Sirvet received the Sept. 18 shopping guide, which contained pullouts from Shoppers and Rite Aid.

“I’m just not a big shopper,” says Sirvet. “I’m not a heavy-duty consumer. There are people who use coupons—I just don’t use them that often.”

(City Paper photograph by Darrow Montgomery)

As the Nationals’ first season in its new and very expensive ballpark is about to come to a close, Marc Fisher tries to figure out why the team wasn’t more of a success in attracting fans.The team is lowering ticket prices next year for some seats, but that may not be enough to create Skins-style buzz.

Who am I kidding? Of course the team will not reach the mania surrounding the Skins. The team has fallen short of what politicians promised would be a windfall for the city. After opening day, the team pretty much stayed off everyone’s radar.

Is there a local sports team that has less of an ardent fan base? I only went to one Nats game this year and was shocked at how empty the stadium seemed. And the ones that attended the game did not seem to know what to do, what to cheer, and how to cheer. Even something as basic as the P.A. blasting the call to yell “Charge!” evoked the limpest, most confused response. Oh, and they don’t show up on time. [Then again, I only went to one game].

I can count on two fingers the number of friends that are super Nats diehards. That’s it. Everyone else I know never talks about the Nats. It’s not like the team isn’t getting covered. At one point, the Post sports section used to give semi-equal billing to the Nats and the Orioles. Now not so much. It seems like only the Nats make it to the front of the sports section.

Then again, the Nats seem like they only have a marginal presence on sports talk radio. I only listen to Sports Talk 980. And I admit, I only listen in the car to and from assignments. Maybe a reader can set the record straight — but I never hear the station talk Nats news. Maybe the Nats need a cagey, experienced, and highly opinionated veteran like the Redskins have (Doc, B-Mitch, and of course, Sonny).

Or the Nats need an actual marquee player as Fisher suggests!

*please note how often I use the word “seem” (three times) and “maybe” (several). Editors frown on using “seem” and “maybe” as they are wishy-washy and lame. This is because I don’t care at all about the Nats but felt compelled to blog about the team after reading Fisher’s unusually brutal assessment of the franchise’s future.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

A lot of stuff happened this weekend, including the rush for a bailout package, the Skins’ victory, fine weather, and more mudslinging in the presidential race. But the event that’s keeping my attention is what allegedly happened out in western Maryland on Friday night. Dunbar Senior High School was out in Cumberland in a tilt against Fort Hill. The Crimson Tide was up, 14-8, when Coach Craig Jefferies pulled his players off the field, after they allegedly heard taunts including the N word out there on the field.

Now, the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association is conducting a probe to see what happened. The refs said they didn’t hear anything racial, and Fort Hill Coach Todd Appel says the same thing. The coach told the Washington Post that he’d spoken to one of the six black players on the 38-player roster, and the player said he’d heard no epithets. Dunbar players counter that the Fort Hill players were saying things under their breath.

I’ll be interested in what the probe turns up. I am not sure that a Maryland athletic association should be trusted to have the final word on the conduct of one of its members.

*fishbowldc rocks an item about WaPo aggregation tool.

*A good luck at the economics of the bubble from the NYT’s David Leonhardt

*Wes Pruden: Read at your own peril.

Can’t be a good day at the Washington Post’s National desk. Five days after the New York Times turned in a whopper of a triple-bylined piece on Sarah Palin’s tenure as mayor and governor in Alaska, the Post puts forth its own triple-threat presentation, courtesy of Amy Goldstein, Kimberly Kindy, and Steven Mufson.

The first tipoff on the mediocrity of this story comes from the headline: “Palin Attuned More to Public Will, Less to Job’s Details.” Hold on a minute–sure this isn’t a biography of W.?

And hold on another minute: The first tipoff on the mediocrity of this story actually comes from its placement, on page A04.

Then come all the platitudes, in big paragraphs:

The episode in April over the license fee, which went from $100 to $50, illustrates central aspects of Palin’s style of governing during her 21 months as Alaska’s chief executive. According to lawmakers, senior gubernatorial aides and others who have watched her closely, the woman chosen by Republican Sen. John McCain as his vice presidential running mate has little interest in political give-and-take, or in sustained working relationships with legislators or other important figures around the state. Nor has she proven particularly attentive to the details of public policy. “She’s not known for burning the midnight oil on in-depth policy issues,” said Larry Persily, a former journalist who was associate director of the governor’s Washington office until the spring.

And:

With her independent streak and her method of governing by leveraging her popular appeal, some who know Palin wonder privately how she would adapt as second-in-command in a McCain administration. Others can envision a natural role she might play. “She is going to be the deliverer of the message,” said Bitney, who is now chief of staff to the state House speaker, “as opposed to sitting down and hashing out the war strategy for the Mideast.”

Ah yes, the old “some…others” dyad–one of the sure signs that your piece is headed nowhere. And the balance of the piece doesn’t disappoint, dishing out a large dose of background on Alaska and other observations about the vp nominee’s political style.

There is, to be sure, a sweet tale of Palin working two BlackBerries in the middle of an important meeting.

So the battle of the titans on Palin’s Alaska record continues. To recap the fight: The Post scored early with pieces on an investigation into whether Palin improperly pressured a state public-safety official and on her collection of per diem expenses while staying at her home. Then came this exchange of three-bylined pieces.

Let’s hope the two outlets keep swinging–Alaska politics, after all, make for fun reading.

On Sunday, the East Coast media elite faced off over what the McCain campaign would have you believe is their favorite target. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times tossed big Sarah Palin investigations on their front pages. The Post’s piece, by Alec MacGillis, went provincial, focusing exclusively on Palin’s work as mayor of Wasilla. It was a nice narrative, deeply reported and rich with context. Here’s one of the money quotes, from a Wasilla politico:

“Sarah always did and still does surround herself with people she gets along well with…They protect her, and that’s what she needs. She has surrounded herself with people who would not allow others to disagree with Sarah. Either you were in favor of everything Sarah was doing or had a black mark by your name.”

MacGillis had fun with the podunk nature of Palin’s mayoral purview, drawing a vivid picture of just how little Palin actually controlled. The piece begins and ends with excerpts from minutes of Wasilla government meetings, for example:

“In September 2002, she presided over her last City Council meeting. The council took up an ordinance to ban sex shops. The police chief announced that Raymond Chiemlowski was promoted to sergeant. Keller “reported that traffic lights on Knik-Goosebay Road will be turned on soon and encouraged everyone to use caution while adjusting to the new traffic pattern.”

Nice touch there.

For all its charms, though, the Post piece clearly lacked the blow-me-away feel that the Times mustered on the same day. Titled “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes,” the account draws both on Palin’s mayoral and gubernatorial records, pretty much delivering the final word on her management style. A huge nugget comes early in the story, when the Times people expose the attempt of a Palin subordinate to stop a blogger from blogging (on general principle, a really bad idea.) Here’s the money quote:

“You should be ashamed!” Ivy Frye, the [Palin] assistant, told her. “Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

Tough to beat that–though the NYT piece does. Check out this comment, from an old Palin associate:

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

There’s much, much more, of course. From a detailed account of Palin’s library censorship tendencies to her penchant for putting friends in high places–and unqualified friends at that–to her way of dealing with others–you’re going to want to read this one two or three times.

Part of the reason NYT got better results is that they sent more resources. Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman, and Michael Powell were all on the case. One thing they have in common is that they’re all great reporters. Another: They’re all former Washington Post reporters.

*Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher clocks in with a strong piece on the investigation that exonerated Prince George’s County police officers who stormed the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo. The cops overturned the place, killed Calvo’s dogs, and wreaked other forms of destruction. And for no good reason. In the end, it’s all about the “no-knock” raid.

*Here, the Washington Times engages in perhaps the most useless genre of journalism on earth: The pre-game analysis piece. It’s about how the Saints’ passing attack poses problems for the Redskins.

*Compelling: A mini slideshow on nytimes.com documenting Ike’s doings in Texas.

*Enterprising: DC Teacher Chic works weekends! In this edition, she hammers a librarian who insults children. The rot!

*Emotional: Reaction to the David Foster Wallace news

Having missed the Sarah Palin-Charlie Gibson interview of last night, I awoke this morning eager to gobble up analysis of this much-anticipated event. In my morning reading, I found two sources with distinct spin on the news here are some key excerpts from an account in the Washington Post.

*”Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks…The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.”

*”In the interview…she was confronted with questions about the U.S. relationship with Russia and her fitness for office, and she appeared to struggle when asked to define the “Bush doctrine” on foreign policy.”

And herewith some excerpts from an account in the Washington Times:

*Headline: “Palin touts readiness in 1st interview”

*”Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Thursday she is ready to be vice president and warned the U.S. needs to be vigilant in the face of Russian aggression, including being ready for war if it means defending NATO allies.”

*”Mr. Gibson at one point implied Mrs. Palin was stumbling over the question, telling her he was getting ‘lost in a blizzard of words there’ when she was fumbling over how far the U.S. could go to pre-empt an attack.”

*”[S]he did stress that during her recent trip she also met with wounded U.S. troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany - something Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama failed to do during his recent overseas travels. And at another point, she noted she has been in touch with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.”

Which story does a better job of capturing the utter truth of Palin’s coming-out interview? Is the Times too nice, the Post too critical?

Years ago, a debate sprung from the editorial offices of the Washington City Paper. Here’s the backdrop: We were writing about a 40-something musician or artist who died when his car got T-boned in a terrible accident. A draft of the story called this event a “tragedy.” A since-departed editor said no, that’s not a tragedy. Do you know what a tragedy actually is?, he inveighed. He said that his English professor preached that a tragedy is when a great, great man dies an early death.

In addition to being a song by the Bee Gees, “Tragedy” is defined as a “calamity: an event resulting in great loss and misfortune….”

So perhaps news outlets should exercise a bit of caution in using the word. Particularly sports writers, who are always trying to amp up the drama in their copy, even stories that don’t involve the Olympics.

This past weekend, I was reading Mark Maske’s piece in the Washington Post about Green Bay Packers executive Mark Murphy. A former Redskin, Murphy was the guy who negotiated the team’s traumatic separation from Brett Favre. Here’s Maske’s bar for tragedy:

For Murphy, the Favre saga played out at a time of personal tragedy. His father Hugh died in mid-July in Clearwater, Fla., at 83, only about 3 1/2 months after having brain cancer diagnosed. Hugh Murphy had a long career in labor relations and had continued to work as a mediator in Florida until about a year before his death.

Is that really a tragedy, or is that just life?

Editor & Publisher reported yesterday on the end of Leonard Downie’s tenure as Washington Post editor, mentioning that he’ll start dedicating his energies to writing books. He already has one novel in the can—The Rules of the Game, to be published by Knopf in January—which he says is “not about The Washington Post.”

Reading Knopf’s description of the book on Amazon, it’s hard to see how he’ll pull it off without a few Postie stand-ins. And back in April, as the video below shows, he told Nathan’s owner Carol Joynt that the book came “largely from my own experience.” In the interview, he also discusses the responses he got from his agent and editor after filing his first draft of sex scenes. That’s at about 1:30 (via):

Here’s a note from Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth on the changes going on in the lobby of the Post building.

As everyone noticed this morning as they entered the 15th Street building, we’re in the process of making changes to the outer lobby and elevator lobby. I am sorry that we did not communicate earlier about this. It has been in the works for some time and was kicked off by the big guy upstairs in Corporate. The goal is simple: update our look while preserving our history.

Briefly, here’s what’s happening: several weeks ago we removed the photo kiosks in the outer lobby to create more space. The guard desk will move to the far end of the outer lobby. To the right as you enter the building, we will install three large high-resolution monitors to display washingtonpost.com, Newsweek.com and Slate. The websites will be visible from the street.

In the elevator lobby, we will install a large monitor that will display washingtonpost.com’s daily Photo Gallery. The surrounding wall will be “papered” in significant historic front pages.

Joe Elbert is creating a video of the historic photos that were in the elevator lobby; that video, which will include many more photos, will play in the Multi-Purpose Room on a new monitor.

Finally, Eugene Meyer’s Seven Principles will be displayed prominently on a column in the outer lobby.

We expect this project to be completed over several weeks, and hope you will enjoy the results.

Today is a big day at the Washington Post, with Marcus Brauchli taking over from longtime Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. But that’s not all, folks!

There are cataclysmic changes going on in the building’s lobby, and they’ve caught the attention of Postie Paul Duggan, who sent this note to his colleagues:

fyi, I’m told the lobby collage of Post front pages from the long-ago previous century and the iconic photo of Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee circa-Pentagon Papers is to be replaced with a flat-screen-TV slide show of photos from each day’s paper and the rest of the wall be simply paint. … Only one coat up there now, so it’s not all gone yet, just faded behind a cloud of beige. … Nice metaphor.

The Washington Post is ready with the latest in Bob Woodward’s probe of of the full eight years of the Bush administration. Haven’t read the book, just the first excerpt in the Post. Verdict: Not a lot of red meat for a Sunday excerpt. Best little tidbit was a top White House aide telling the prez about Iraq:

“It’s hell, Mr. President,” said deputy national security adviser Meghan O’Sullivan.

This took place around 2006, pre-surge, when things in Iraq were looking, well, like hell.

But outside of that rare glimpse into Bush administration truth-telling, Woodward’s working with a lot of bureaucratic goop in this bad boy. Sure, he clues us into a spat between Condi and a top military official, but the key revelation in this first installment is that Bush was seeking a strategic re-evaluation of the situation in Iraq during this 2006 time frame. Good spade work, Bob, but hardly memorable stuff.

*Who woulda thunk that Roger Federer would’ve made it to the U.S. Open final, given his struggles this summer? And who would’ve thunk that his opponent wouldn’t be Rafael Nadal?

*WashTimes on Palin’s post-convention coming-out.

*This is the guy you want to listen to when it comes to analysis of the Fannie-Freddie takeover.

*And let me just say this about Favre’s debut with the Jets. Indeed, green machine fans, you are 1 and Oh after barely squeaking out a vick over the Dolphins. It happened in part on account of the heroics of your new QB, who threw a vintage heave for a TD in the first half of this tilt. Don’t, however, get giddy. This is a guy who, I’ll predict right now, will toss at least five more INTs than TDs before the year is over or he’s benched, whichever comes first, in car-maintenance parlance. Just wait till he starts to feel a bit comfortable with the system, because that’s when he starts improvising, starts calling his own little plays in the huddle, sandlotting it. And that’s precisely when the defense swoops in, grabbing duck after duck after Favrean duck. I suppose you could look upon this year as Favre’s best chance to pad that NFL-record pick total.