But Jenkins took a short break from the confessional to say that in a previous post I'd made an error about how extensive the Jenkins/Armstrong library is: "By the way," she wrote, "tell Dave McKenna it’s only two books with Armstrong, not 'several.'"

Those words hurt, coming from such a high place. And her allegation seems so dead-on; I really had written that she wrote "several" books, and she really had only written two. And the first of several online dictionaries I visited in hopes of a reprieve gave definitions of "several" that indicated I was guilty as charged.

But then I thought of Lance, who would never ever just cave and admit his accusers were right, no matter how obvious his guilt, no matter how strong the evidence.

So on I googled...

...and I found this: "Several (sev ar ul) adj. As in many, multiple, more than one, quite a few, boy what a lot of 'em, etc."

"MORE THAN ONE!"

Ok, so it ain't Webster's. It's a definition used by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's bio-chemistry department.

I'll ride with them!

So...while RPI nerds would clear me of your charges, Sally, I wonder what this gaggle of bio-chemists would say about Lance's guilt if given a look-see at several CC's of his vintage pee pee!

And while I've got you, Sally: You said in the comments section that you explored the Armstrong/Contador alliance because it was like watching Joan Crawford and Bette Davis brawl.

Well, in that very same column about Lance and Contador, you mention him being interviewed by Frankie Andreu.

Frankie Andreu? Lance's former teammate and most credible accuser? The guy whose accusation, in a court case, put the "Lance Is a Doper!" charges into high gear? The guy who never retracted his damning testimony?

That Frankie Andreu?

Heck, if Armstrong/Contador is like Joan Crawford/Bette Davis, then isn't Armstrong/Andreu like Joan Crawford vs. the dude who wrote "Mommie Dearest"?

Who wouldn't want to read how Lance feels about talking to his primary accuser? But that relationship gets no play in your Washington Post copy.

That's why some of us dwell on whether these Tour de France stories are affected by the several (RIP, RPI dictionary!) two books you've written with Lance.

Sorry for rambling through the Pyrenees here, Sally. It really was fab of you to stop by. Please come again.

"You all think it is inappropriate to hire a girlfriend. I don't think it is. In fact, there is no law against it," Barry told The Washington Post. When asked whether he would hire another woman he becomes romantically involved with, Barry said, "Unless the law changes, why not?

Maybe he wouldn't have done all of it over again, particularly the Denver hotel room drama. Maybe he wouldn't even have his camp constantly text and call Watts-Brighthaupt throughout this ordeal in an attempt to get her to recant or who knows what. Watts-Brighthaupt was never sure what his people wanted from her post-July 4. Maybe he wouldn't have insisted on labeling her "unstable" and giving her some kind of disorder.

What is so disappointing about the Post story is that the reporter doesn't call Barry's bluff. In fact, Barry had tried to do it all over again. On June 29, the councilmember offered Watts-Brighthaupt a new lucrative contract. And she turned him down in a scathing e-mail response.

"I feel as if I'm selling my soul to you for the tax payer’s dollar,” Watts-Brighthaupt wrote. At least one person in that relationship eventually believed those contract deals were fishy.

While we're on the subject of setting the record straight, the Washington Post printed an error in a previous story on the Watts-Brighthaupt affair. If not an error than a real whopper of a misquote. In Friday's story on the council's probe, the Post writes:

"In an interview yesterday with The Washington Post, Watts-Brighthaupt raised further questions about the contract when she said she was hired to study Barry's political life. That would appear to contradict the terms of the contract, which said she would consult on 'poverty reduction strategies.'"

In interviews with Watts-Brighthaupt, she told us that she was interested in studying Barry and his grasp on local politics. That's what attracted her to him in the first place. But she has always stated to us that she was hired to develop or consult on the Young Emerging Leaders program. She was never paid to study Barry. After the Post piece ran, she called us to complain about the error.

Some cancellations to report:

First and worst: Boxer Jimmy Lange's scheduled July 25 fight in Greensboro, N.C., is off. A Lange spokesman told me over the weekend that the cancellation, first reported by the great local boxing clearinghouse boxingaroundthebeltway.com, came "out of the blue" after North Carolina  authorities refused to sanction Lange's opponent, Jimmy LeBlanc. Lange's camp surmises that LeBlanc's record (12–16–4, with 10 of the losses coming in his last 12 fights) had regulators fearing a mismatch with the former cast member of NBC's reality fight show, "The Contender." Lange, from Great Falls, had hoped to use the Greensboro bout, his first outside of Fairfax since gaining TV stardom, to expand his considerable fan base beyond the beltway.

And Bruce Smith's hometown of Virginia Beach has cancelled a festival to honor the former Redskins defensive end. The cancellation comes after Smith was convicted last week of DUI, following his franchise-record-breaking third drunk driving arrest in the last 12 years.

Also, there will be no Allen Iverson Celebrity Softball or Flag Football games around here this year. The former Georgetown star's events had been held for several years at Prince George's Stadium and attracted an impressive number of big-name sports celebs to our area. Iverson this year moved the party to the Tidewater region of Virginia, the stomping grounds, so to speak, of his youth. Iverson's three-day shindig, now called the CrossOver Celebrity Weekend, was thrown over the weekend.

Tom Sedlacek, a spokesman for Prince George's Stadium, says: "We were open to holding it here again this year, and kept dates open on our calendar, but apparently there was no interest from [Iverson] to do it here."

I wonder if Iverson let Josh Howard sing the National Anthem this year?

AFTER THE JUMP: Asian Bias™ resurfaces at OTHER U.S. Open? Brock Lesnar needs some time to heel? Dan Snyder vintage videotapes? ANOTHER Sean Taylor ode?

***

Back to ignoring all that Post-Racial America talk: Turns out it's not just Congressional or the AT&T National that has an Asian Bias™! Yesterday's U.S. Women's Open golf championship had Eun Hee Ji banging home a long putt on the last hole to win by a stroke over Candie Kung. First round leader Na Yeon Choi fell to ninth. Defending champ Inbee Park managed 26th place. Past winners of the three-year-old AT&T National, remember, are KJ Choi, Anthony Kim and Tiger Woods. First rule of Journalism®: Three's a trend!

The LPGA Tour, unlike the men, tried to do something to eliminate its Asian Bias™ last season, in the process revealing a profound Anti-Asian Bias™ among the folks running the tour: Commissioner Carolyn Bivens briefly instituted an "English-only" policy after a meeting with South Korean players a year ago. Really! She did! I swear! It's one of the great sports stories of our time!

Bivens' Linguistic Cleansing™ scheme was scrapped almost as soon as the Liberal Media found out about it, and now as Cheap Seats Daily goes to press, she's about to be fired. Sic Semper Douchebaggius.

***

My ultimate ultimate fighter, Brock Lesnar, retained the UFC heavyweight belt with an artless pounding of Frank Mir on Saturday night. Here's what LA Times' T.J. Simers wrote of the spectacle.

"But what does this say about us, people screaming with glee because blood is running down someone's face and he's still in there punching? What does it say about violence's voyeuristic appeal, the sight of someone being choked into unconsciousness reason for howling approval?

It's hard to believe public executions wouldn't do well. And just think of the reality TV show that's sitting there waiting to be done, instead of the weigh-in, the final meal.

When you watch something like UFC 100, there's really no reason to believe there are limits to what might entertain people."

Well, I would watch a street fight video before any highlight reel from any accepted sport. I'm not proud of that, but damn if it ain't true. But the Lesnar fight was boring until after he was done pounding Mir and told the crowd to fuck off, then told prime sponsor Bud Light to fuck off. Now THAT's entertainment!

Especially after UFC 100, anybody who likes MMA but sneers at pro wrestling is clearly of the douchebaggius genus.

***

The Gazette reports that Rosecroft Raceway's bankrupt owners are proposing selling out to a guy who plans to make the racetrack a gambling center, with poker and other table games and, maybe, a little horse racing. Cheap Seats Daily has just set the odds of all this actually happening at 1,000,000,000-1.

***

Hogs Haven posts some interviews with then-new owner Dan Snyder from 10 years ago. Watching them, and knowing how things turned out, is like listening to George Bush talk about the need to disarm Iraq in 2003.

***

A fellow named Brooks J. DeGhetto is posting on Skins fan sites about "21 Sean," a song he wrote in tribute to Sean Taylor. The critic in me says the performance is Jim Morrison-meets-"A Mighty Wind" (sample lyric: "21 Sean your spirit carries on inside of me/Wherever you are you'll be a superstar, running free/You're running free for all to see, in burgundy/and gold." Ahem.) And the rest of me says: Enough with the tributes to a guy who had about the same number of good seasons as arrests. But it takes guts to put yourself out there like Mr. DeGhetto has here. Sean would like that.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Somebody sent me a link today to the Billy Ripken Fleer card from 1989, one of the most famous baseball cards of all time, if not one of the most valuable. All because of what's written on the end of his bat.

Ripken's stunt card turns 20 years old this season. What a stir that was! Oh, for a time when athletes didn't have to show their naughty bits or burn a cow to get noticed...

"One out of 5 Americans admitted to peeing in the pool," said the voice.

Wham!

Then somebody from Georgetown University in a doctor's smock showed up on my screen to say, "Michael Phelps admitted peeing in the pool."

Bam!

Et tu, Mikey? Or, I guess, Et unus?

I love myUpshur Pool, and jump in all the time, even though my brain tells me folks are peeing away like it's the Preakness infield. That's why I don't think about it. Ignorance is piss, so to speak.

And even after the Fox report, I'll keep jumping in. But from now on I'm steering clear of crowds of five people or more.

And if I see Michael Phelps in the deep end, well, might as well cue the Jaws theme. I'm outta there.

Seems like a great hire. Weisman's been writing about the NFL for the Gannett paper since the early 1980s. I know him best from his frequent guest appearances over the years on the wonderful "The Sports Reporters" radio show on WTEM, a station which is now owned by Dan Snyder. And Weisman's great on that. Weisman was never as bombastic or entertaining as host Steve Czaban, but he came off as smart and plugged in.

And in his old typing job, Weisman didn't pull punches on the man who now signs his checks.

This from a USAToday chat in March 2006:

Ashburn, VA: Does Dan Snider have a clue? You think he would learn from his past mistakes. I wonder if looked at the number of catches El had last year or just the big pass in the Super Bowl. Even more funny is his pickup of T.O. lite from San Fran. 30 mil for a saftey that has taken one too many blows to the head? I give each player no more than two years before Dan cuts them.

Larry Weisman: Look at the bright side. He passes the costs on to season ticket holders and those who park cars at FedUpField. Ever heard that expression about people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing? Remember that Dan Snyder isn't so much playing with house money as with your money.

"FedUpField"? Nice!

Wonder if Weisman will call him "Mister Snyder" now.

***

Weisman will work under Larry Michael, the team's minister of propaganda "Senior Vice President/Executive Producer-Media."

Michael had an odd quote in the release welcoming Weisman: "Larry’s credibility and experience will give Redskins fans something new and compelling to look forward to this season and beyond.”

So having somebody with "credibility" in Redskins Park is something fans will regard as "new and compelling?" Wow. An era of honesty kicks off!

***

Weisman's first task will be to shmooze Rick Maese, the new Redskins beat reporter for the Washington Post. Maese replaces Jason La Canfora, one of a boatload of writer who Redskins officials have held vendettas against in the Snyder era. Mister Irrelevant introduced the new kid with a great Q&A.

Redskins Release after the jump, as well as Nats getting broomed, and local boy made good Maury Wills is HUGE in...North Dakota?

***

(Groundhog) Day Game for the Nats under the Miami sun: Manny Acta protects a young arm (Jordan Zimmermann), turns lead over bullpen, bullpen blows lead, Ryan Zimmerman makes an error, Nats lose game.

And, another sweep. The Nats should get an endorsement deal from Swiffer.

***

I let Joel Hanrahan's passing go too quietly. The guy who took the "C" out of closer lost the race out of town with Manny Acta. Hanrahan was shipped to Pittsburgh a couple days ago. This town's tolerance for bad baseball is big, but not big enough for the both of 'em. Hope Hanrahan turns into an All-Star, but, damn, he sure earned a bus ticket.

***

Went to see the DC Grays and Fairfax Nationals of the wood-bat Clark Griffith League at Maury Wills Field on Georgia Avenue NW last night. The rain stopped play in the fifth inning, but, the game was fab. This just in: The college kids today are good!

The rebuilt field, located across the street from where the Negro League Homestead Grays and Major League Washington Senators used to play at Griffith Stadium, looked great, was easy to get to, had plenty of parking and was an all-around great place to watch a game. I'm guessing, though, that whoever from D.C. Parks and Rec decided to put the fences just 295-feet down the lines wasn't a big baseball guy or gal. A concessions table should be added to the scene, too.

As disseminated yesterday: The D.C. Gray's field, next to Banneker Rec Center, is named after D.C. legend Maury Wills, who was an all-sports star at Cardozo in the 1950s and a base-stealing wizard with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960s.

But it's not the first tribute to one of the greatest athletes ever produced in D.C.

No, there's already a Maury Wills Museum - in Fargo, N.D.! How'd that happen?

***

Skins Press Release:

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA. —

The Washington Redskins announced today that Larry Weisman has left USA Today to become Editorial Director of the Redskins Media Department.  Weisman will start on July 20.

Weisman comes to the Redskins with an extensive background covering professional football.  In his 33 years as a professional sports writer, Weisman has authored more than 5,000 published stories, primarily with USA Today.  He has also covered college basketball, professional hockey, championship boxing and soccer, but has specialized in pro football since 1983.

Weisman began covering pro football in 1978, including 29 Super Bowls.  He joined USA Today, the nation’s largest general-interest daily newspaper, in 1983.  During his tenure with USA Today, he has covered and authored stories on all 32 NFL teams.  His writing and reporting have won awards from the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Pro Football Writers Association and the New York State Associated Press in the game story and spot news categories. Prior to joining USA Today, Weisman worked for what is now called the Westchester Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., where he covered the Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders. He has also been a contributing writer to The Sporting News NFL Preview, Street & Smith Football Annual and Patriots Football Weekly.

He has made various appearances on ESPN, CNN, NFL Films and CBS News programming.  He has been a regular contributor to ESPN Radio, Fox Sports Radio, Sirius Satellite Radio, and has frequently made guest appearances on local, national and syndicated radio stations throughout the United States and around the globe.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Weisman is also the author of three books: “The Terry Bradshaw Franchise Football League,” “Companions in Courage in Courage; Triumphant Tales of Heroic Athletes,” co-written by Pat LaFontaine, Chas Griffin and Ernie Valutis, and “Let’s Go to the Videotape All the Plays and Replays from My Life in Sports,” with Warner Wolf.

Weisman also made it to Hollywood with a cameo appearance as a sports writer in Adam Sandler’s box office hit remake of the “The Longest Yard.”

“It’s exciting to have Larry Weisman join our media team,” said Senior Vice President/Executive Producer-Media Larry Michael.  “Larry is one of the most recognizable NFL writers in the country, and his work at USA Today was second to none. Larry’s credibility and experience will give Redskins fans something new and compelling to look forward to this season and beyond.”

Weisman will contribute to various Redskins television, radio and print properties.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com.

This wasn't just another media-personnel story for the trade publications. The act of a powerful news organization cutting off the head of a Bush-bashing media figure gave the Internet free license to indulge in Idiot Time.

Leading the charge was Atlantic.com's Andrew Sullivan, who connected the move to---what else?---politics and ideology:

Dan's work on torture may be one reason he is now gone. The way in which the WaPo has been coopted by the neocon right, especially in its editorial pages, is getting more and more disturbing. This purge will prompt a real revolt in the blogosphere. And it should...

Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald saw something scandalous here as well:

Why was Froomkin deemed "liberal," inappropriate and biased? Because he pointed out that the Bush administration's claims were false and their policies radical -- i.e., he wrote what was factually true. But that -- writing what is factually true and pointing out false statements from those in political power -- is the number one sin in establishment journalism.

And here's a commenter on washingtonpost.com:

You publish Dana Milbank's pap column, you publish 14 part articles on Chadra Levy, and you can't put one honest voice in?

I am appalled.

At this point your paper has become simply a tool of the Washington establishment. Yet another place to read the same garbage I can get anywhere else.

There are obvious problems with these theories. To address Sullivan's point: Why would the Post bag Froomkin over torture when its own editorials have opposed the practice? And to address Greenwald's point: If the Post were really canning this guy over his Bush-related rantings, wouldn't Froomkin have been pushed out sometime during Bush's terms in office?

All the conjecture amounts to fantasy. It would be wonderful, that is, if the Post's move had really been motivated by partisan politics. Or, better yet, by a fear that this iconoclast was just too dangerous for the paper. What a Washington story that'd be.

Too bad that Froomkin's firing is a far less spectacular story, one that hinges on money and resources, with a side of standard newsroom conflict. Everything, in other words, except for ideology.

Froomkin started his online White House coverage for washingtonpost.com in January 2004, just as public skepticism of the Bush administration was starting to surface. His column's launch coincided with the publication of Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty, which took a dim view of the reigning administration. "As it happened, that day was essentially the beginning of the Bush critique," says Froomkin.

Is it a touch arrogant for Froomkin to position himself as the catalyst of a political movement? Perhaps, but it's accurate, too. Other commentators, to be sure, bashed the Bush administration with great regularity. Froomkin, though, established a new standard for regularity. Each morning, he'd start his work at 6 a.m., as any good Web journalist must. He'd grind through just about everything that'd been written about the White House over the past news cycle. "From six in the morning on, I am reading voraciously and analyzing and synthesizing and writing. I finish filing by about one most days and start the next cycle fairly soon after that," he says.

Froomkin's synthesis rarely ended favorably for the Bushies. Here's a snippet from a February 2007 column:

President Bush has all but vanished from the national and international radar. But Vice President Cheney is everywhere and in the thick of it all.

His credibility may be shot, he and his boss may be lame ducks, his signal achievement -- the war in Iraq -- may now be almost universally disparaged, his former chief of staff may soon be found guilty of multiple felonies, but it would appear that rumors of the vice president's demise as a political force have been greatly exaggerated.

Consider the following:

* Cheney's latest stops on a highly-publicized world tour have been in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he is said to be belatedly but forcefully pressing government leaders to be more aggressive in hunting down Al Qaeda operatives.

* Since the British announcement of a troop withdrawal from Iraq last week, Cheney has been the administration's point man in a fervid but inevitably fruitless attempt to spin that as a sign of success.

* Cheney has also become the foremost defender of the administration's Iraqi policy in general -- though in doing so he has further fueled criticisms that his assertions are often unsupported and sometimes misleading.

* In an interview on Friday, Cheney defended his assertion in 1991 that invading Iraq would result in a quagmire -- reopening speculation about what Cheney and Bush knew before they went to war in Iraq, what they told the American people, and the gulf between the two.

* Last week, Cheney suddenly spoke in highly critical terms about China, scolding it for behaviour he called "not consistent" with its stated aim of a peaceful rise as a global power.

* Even as I write, Cheney's former chief of staff if awaiting his fate at Washington's federal courthouse, and the verdict -- whichever way it goes -- will inevitably remind the public of Cheney's important and unseemly role in the leaking of a CIA operative's identity. (One juror was dismissed from the jury today, after being exposed to some sort of outside information about the case.)

* And then there's Iran. The reports that Bush is gearing up for strikes against that country may be ambiguous and speculative -- but there appears to be little doubt that Cheney is the lead hawk pushing for a more aggressive posture.

Equivocation, hedging, shading, tiptoeing---none of those turn up in Froomkin's toolkit. While the White House press corps was busy minding their editors' standards, Froomkin was smashing mouths, and he had the traffic numbers to show for it. At the end of 2007, the Post published a list of its top ten most "popular opinions" of the year; Froomkin occupied three of the spots.

During that W. heyday, the column was pulling in a good 50,000 to 70,000 hits on a decent day. When it was really rocking, it would move to the 100,000 range, a phenomenal total.

The Obama administration has offered a less juicy target, in part because it hasn't had quite as much time to screw things up. In the past six months, accordingly, hits on White House Watch have dropped to the point that Post officials cite traffic as a reason for bagging the column.

"His traffic had gone way down," says Fred Hiatt, the paper's editorial page editor. Froomkin himself uses the same talking point: "Traffic definitely did go down."

And right there, the discussion hits something of a brick wall: Though washingtonpost.com's overall Web-hit numbers are public information, the paper places breakout stats for columns and blogs in a secret cache, which complicates any effort to piece together Froomkin's traffic trends.

A few snapshots from recent months, however, appear to corroborate the smaller Obama-era audience. Over three days in late March and early April, for example, White House Watch bounced from No. 3 to No. 7 to No. 11 on the list of top washingtonpost.com blogs. The hits for the column were 49,000, 29,000, and 15,000 on those days.

And over a three-day period in late May, Froomkin's rankings came in at No. 6, No. 6, and No. 7. Hits for each of those days were right around 20,000. A Post source says that White House Watch's traffic has suffered a two-thirds drop over time.

The traffic slump is apparently dire enough that Post brass could no longer justify paying Froomkin about $100,000 in contract money to crank out daily commentary---a sum that falls short of what the Post pays many national political reporters. "We have had to make a lot of hard decisions about resources," says Hiatt.

The Froomkin axing is a red-letter event in Post history because it's the first time that a major personnel decision has hinged so squarely on Web hits. For years, the orthodoxy from Post leaders is that the paper produces journalism that it believes in---mass popularity be damned. Perhaps that's no longer the case. Questions on this matter were sent to newspaper spokesperson Kris Coratti but went unanswered.

One of the tricky aspects of judging people on Web hits is that the digital playing field is a tough surface to level. Some bloggers, for instance, plug their work on TV appearances; others don't. Then there's the issue of link visibility. "A chronic problem had been promotion of the column on the homepage. My readers complained that it was harder and harder to find all the time," says Froomkin. Zero: The amount of sympathy Froomkin will get from other Posties on how visible and navigable his stories have been on washingtonpost.com---that's a common affliction at the paper.

Yet Froomkin was no stranger to prominent exposure on washingtonpost.com. Says former washingtonpost.com opinions editor Michael Newman: "If [White House Watch] weren’t on the homepage within a few minutes of publication, you would hear from Dan. I don't want to overstate it---sometimes it was good-natured, but sometimes it wasn't."

Special consideration was appropriate for White House Watch, argued Froomkin, because the column and the site benefited greatly from prime visibility for White House Watch. Equipped with this certitude, Froomkin wouldn't let up on homepage play: "If he was unsatisfied with the response, he would keep at it till he got the response he wanted," says Newman.

Froomkin and his editors clicked from the homepage onto other portals of conflict. Media criticism was a good one: The columnist considered commenting on how the media were portraying the White House a significant part of his job; his editors felt otherwise. "They told me they didn’t want me to do media criticism. I could never quite figure out how I could avoid it," says Froomkin. The friction produced a series of spiked Froomkin columns, which generally got published on the Nieman Watchdog blog, including the columnist's takedown of the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

Marisa Katz, the paper's Web opinions editor, says the dinner story "read more like a Howie Kurtz media column, or one of Dan’s Nieman Watchdog items, than a post focused on the Obama White House."

Whatever the merits of banning Froomkin from the Romenesko beat, the move sure did anger the writer. "No journalist likes to have their work spiked," says Froomkin.

There were also battles over the column's direction, format, timing and length of its items, and chatting with followers. Says Katz: "The hope was for a feature that would be differentiated by Dan’s opinion and analysis and perspective and personality, and that would allow for greater timeliness, the incorporation of multimedia, and more opportunities for reader engagement, among other advantages."

And speaking of reinvention, once Post editors decided that White House Watch was no longer viable, they gave Froomkin a chance to come forward with "ideas for potential features that would take him in a new and different direction and that might resonate more with readers. Unfortunately, he wasn't interested in doing anything else for The Post," says Katz.

On that point, Froomkin says, "I felt what I was doing was absolutely the best thing I could do for the Washington Post."

Katz emphasizes that "artistic differences" didn't drive a wedge between the Post and White House Watch. "It was about the need to make budget cuts in a bad business climate and a feature that wasn't resonating like it used to," she says. The columnist heard an honest accounting when he met with Hiatt and Managing Editor Raju Narisetti. "They didn’t think the column was working anymore and I tried to make the case that it was," says Froomkin.

Yet just because the Post's decision wasn't tainted by neocon ideology and the cowardly calculations of an "establishment media" operation doesn't mean it wasn't dumb, short-sighted, and self-destructive. It was all of those things.

The key number in this whole saga is not the $100,000 that Froomkin was making. Nor is it the 20,000 hits to which his daily traffic sometimes sinks.

It's $500,000-plus. That's what the Post invested over the years in White House Watch. That's what it took to pay someone with the doggedness to mine every last detail about presidential coverage on the Web and turn it into something digestible. And that's what it took to actuate thousands upon thousands of fans to bookmark Froomkin for as long as he stayed at it. And what a wise investment it was, to judge by the outrage that has spilled onto comments boards around the Web.

To fire the guy six months into a new administration reflects a jittery approach to building a Web site, not to mention a betrayal of the Post's venerable MO of patient, long-haul planning. As President Obama faces more and more difficult decisions in reforming Washington, he's bound to alienate the lefty constituency that has formed a crowded party on Froomkin's platform for more than five years. Three to six months more---that's all it would have taken for Froomkin to get back to his old traffic neighborhood.

And Froomkin, 46, should have seen this coming. He's just the latest in a series of departures from the Web side of the Post. His first job with the organization was back in 1997, not long after the Post located its online operations in Arlington. Part of the motivation for placing Froomkin and other web people on the other side of the river was to keep their operation from getting swallowed whole by the retrograde print cluster. For more than a decade, washingtonpost.com's producers, bloggers, and executives managed the site on their own, a separate power center.

Over the past year, top Post officials have decided to merge the print and Web operations. But "merge," at this point, appears far too mutual a term to describe how the operations are conjoining: lopsidedly, that is. Over the past year or so, the site's top talent has either fled or been elbowed aside, including online Publisher Caroline Little, washingtonpost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady, Managing Editor Ju-Don Roberts, multimedia editor Tom Kennedy, and political editor Russ Walker. Their collective departure clarifies that the geographical separation merely delayed print's annexation of washingtonpost.com.

What does all this institutional babble mean for Froomkin? It means that once his contract came up for review, he essentially had to rely on the print team to back him up. Yeah, like that was going to happen.

In fairness to print-centric Posties, Froomkin is a new-media animal that just about any traditional newsroom would have trouble appreciating. He calls himself an accountability guy, yet he doesn't bang the phones all day and attend briefings. He does his work by reading and synthesizing what other journalists do. And he does it all from his Tenleytown home! How could a second-hand journalist like this guy become such a force on the Internet?

Via constancy. Day in and day out, Froomkin nailed the same themes and the same players---and delivered his package at the same hour, not unlike the evening newspapers of yore. His franchise fused the basic principles of Internet success: define your beat narrowly, post consistently, be passionate. It's a great formula, and the Post should be proud of having nurtured it. Pretty soon now, it'll be the asset of whatever organization hires Froomkin to replicate it. The columnist expects to reach a deal with a new employer "within a week or two."

The Sox fans not only stayed, they cheered til the end. Sure, they're hatable. But, man, they're good fans.

***

The Wizards drafted University of Central Florida's Jermaine Taylor with their second round pick last night. His dad is Kenny Green, the guy the Bullets drafted in 1985 instead of Karl Malone. The Bullets, then GM'd by Bob Ferry, also passed on John Stockton (for Mel Turpin).

Throughout the '90s, folks traced the franchise's woes to the Green-over-Malone pick. I called Green up years ago to ask if it bothered him.

It still did.

He asked me to pass on a message to Bullets/Wizards fans.

"Don't blame Kenny Green!" Green said.

Malone was available again last night when Green's kid was drafted. 'Course, he's 45 now and long retired. Abe Pollin had to be tempted. Ernie Grunfeld, the new Bob Ferry, passed. Wanna know what would be great? If Utah countered the Wiz by drafting Demetrius Bell. He's Malone's son. He's on the Buffalo Bills now.

***

For this week's Cheap Seats I wrote a column about about a party planned by former Redskins reciever Gary Clark that somehow got way out of bounds before it ever took place.

So out of bounds that it won't ever take place.

The party was allegedly going to be a fundraiser for a group called Athletes Committed to Educational Success, or ACES. That's a charity that Clark has said he started to provide youth mentoring services and the like. But as far as the governments in Virginia and D.C., where he has advertised previous fundraisers for the same group, are concerned, ACES does not exist.

***

Redskins from the Gibbs era are known for throwing events for charities they start. Clark’s teammates, Art Monk and Charles Mann, have been holding celebrity golf tournaments and assorted shindigs since 1999, when they first promised folks in Anacostia that they’d build them a job training and education center through their charity, called the Good Samaritan Foundation.

Based on Monk and Mann’s pledges, the players were given control of the historic Carver Theater, on Martin Luther King Avenue SE, in the heart of the business district of what has long been one of the most depressed neighborhoods in the city.

And through their fundraising efforts and lobbying of city officials and federal lawmakers, Monk and Mann's group has now accrued millions of dollars in private and public donations.

Yet the job training center in Anacostia never opened.

I’ve been writing about its non-opening for years, and every time I do another story somebody from the group, either a member of the board of directors or the project manager for the theater renovation or even Mann himself, has told me that it’s only a matter of days or weeks before the renovation will be complete and the training center will be open.

But that never happened.

At the end of 2008 I started hearing commercials during Redskins radio broadcasts for Wal-Mart promising money to a new charity for Monk and Mann called the Youth Power Center.

I drove past the Carver Theater the other day. The building was boarded up.

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Shortly after Paul McCartney and Snyder announced a few days ago that the ex-Fab would be playing FedExField on August 1, the Redskins posted an offer on the team's website: Buy club seats for the 2009 football season, and you can also purchase Paul McCartney tickets before they go on sale to the general public next Friday.

If you sign on to redskins.com now, the first page that will hit you features a McCartney/premium seats offer.

This was a rare Redskins offseason without any real ooomph -- Albert Haynesworth's skills far outweigh his name recognition, so his signing probably didn't sell a dozen season tickets.

That means to Snyder, McCartney is this year's Steve Spurrier, his Bruce Smith, his Deion Sanders and his Joe Gibbs 2.0. All in one.

Even if McCartney doesn't fill up all those yellow splotches in the club level, look for the Skins owner to set aside a massive amount of concert seats in his stadium to unload for big bucks on Stubhub, the official scalper of all things Snyder.

BTW: Snyder's early buy-in offer for the McCartney show isn't exclusive. American Express is also advertising on radio and TV (including spots during NBC-4's US Open coverage yesterday) saying tickets are now available to "American Express card holders only."

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Nowhere is Snyder's black belt in gouging more evident than in the parking realm.

Parking was $10 at FedExField when he bought the place. By last season, he'd quadrupled the charge. Now, according to new rules posted by the entertaining putzes on Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, the team has eliminated all cash parking lots for the 2009 season.

Since mass transit options to FedEx are paltry, that pretty much means every season ticket holder will have to buy a 10-game parking pass that will charge fees for the two preseason games.

This change, if it sticks, won't cause the big stink that Snyder's alleged War on Tailgating will.

But has Snyder ever done anything the fans like?

***

On to other Snyders, and some good news: Brandon Snyder, a Chantilly kid and former bonus baby who I saw hit homers in Little League, was just promoted from AA Bowie to the O's Triple-A affiliate in Richmond Norfolk. (Thanks, DH!)

Come September, he'll get his cup of coffee.

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Sure, Calbert Cheaney was all-world with Bobby Knight at Indiana, and wasn't much as a pro.

But does Cheaney, the Washington Bullets top pick in 1993, really rate as the Fourth Biggest NBA Bust of All Time? Rivals.com blogger Chris Chase thinks so.

I dunno 'bout this. Cheaney was too bland for such a high ranking on the all-time shitlist.

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The great Thom Loverro, fresh off pounding on Rob Dibble like he was a side of beef on the set of "Rocky," defended Manny Acta over the weekend.

But four Nats victories and two series wins in a row, before yesterday's return to form, means Acta won't really need anybody in his corner. Not for at least a week. John Feinstein, the Garth Brooks of sportswriters, got in Acta's corner a week ago, when the manager was getting a standing eight count from the national media.

When the Nats win the 2009 World Series, Feinstein's article will be viewed as the turning point.

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Back to me: Yesterday's press release announcing the show featured two testimonials of McCartney's greatness, from Dan Snyder...and "Dave McKenna."

Snyder got quoted ("I've been a fan of Paul's all my life, so it's going to be a memorable night for us all.") because he owns the stadium. Makes sense. Me? I guess because whoever put out the press release was under orders to find a quote about McCartney blander than Snyder's. And they hit gold with something I wrote about McCartney's voice ("still strong enough to leave listeners awestruck") for the Washington Post in 2005.

If it's mine, I'm embarrassed by that clause, for sure. But I've never felt so close to Snyder. Turns out we have a bond.

Now I want to know if Snyder's a "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or "He Said She Said" guy? And how many times he played "Revolution #9" backwards just to hear "I buried Paul!"?

I wonder if he had a Beatles belt buckle!

We'll be picking out furniture soon! Text me, Dan!

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Every little thing he does is magic, so...Nightspots are sending out press releases to let folks know ALEX OVECHKIN WAS HERE! I got this email from a Vegas  restaurant/club yesterday, a few hours before the Caps star was named MVP again.

"The NHL invasion arrived in Vegas and it is not surprising that hot spot LAVO inside The Palazzo was the destination of choice for the ice hockey stars, including Washington Capitals’ own Alexander Ovechkin. At LAVO Nightclub, NHL star Jeremy Roenick hosted a slew of on ice stars from teams across the NHL, including Vancouver Canuck Mats Sundin, and Edmonton Oiler Sheldon Souray, but one of the most notable almost didn’t make it into the club.  Twenty-three year old Russian phenomenon Alexander Ovechkin who is up for the league’s MVP award, arrived a bit underdressed  wearing flip flops.  Luckily those manning the velvet ropes recognized Ovechkin, who in 2008 signed the most lucrative contract in NHL history with his 13 year, $124 million contract extension, and made an exception so that the superstar and his group could join Roenick’s table upstairs.  Once safely inside, the league’s scoring leader danced on the banquettes to the sounds of DJ Crooked and made his rounds to visit various tables of hockey players throughout the club."

Ovechkin's the new Paris and Lindsay.

(DANG! Looks like the great Dan Steinberg got the same memo!)

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Via DCsportsfan.com: Quinn Cook from, where else?, DeMatha led the U.S. Under-16 National basketball team to a rout of Venezuela yesterday at the FIBA Americas U16 Championship in Mendoza, Argentina.

Is there any prep sport NOT dominated by DeMatha? Well, besides field hockey?

If Quinn wasn't so good, he might have been able to join teammate Victor Oladipo and a group of DeMatha classmates at the White House today for BBQ/cooking session with Michelle Obama and Bobby Flay. True story!

***

These guys must be smarter than the fish: The FLW College Fishing tour is coming! Teams of anglers from a few dozen schools, including many I've never heard of (Messiah, anyone? Chestnut Hill? Glenville State? Geneseo?), are entered in a bass tournament on the Potomac next Saturday, June 27. Takeoff and weigh-in are at Smallwood State Park in Marbury, Md.

I can't mock kids who fish their way through school. The only thing I learned in college was that I was a loser at poker.

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Triathlons are not fun. Proof? Well, here's what's tagged as a "Fun Fact" from the press kit of the Dextro Energy Triathlon, which will be clogging our arteries all over town on Sunday:

• The only person ever to beat Emma Snowsill of Australia since 2005 in an ITU sanctioned event has been Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal, who is sidelined through injury this weekend.

Who is that fact fun for? Other than Emma Snowsill, being free of her nemesis Vanessa of Portugal and all...

***

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The party was allegedly scheduled for August 29 at RFK and was going to bring together 20,000 fans (paying $25 to $12,500) and at least one dead Redskin.

When you click the invitation pages now, you will get a message that says "The page you are trying to access is a password protected page. Please enter the password in the text box below then click the 'Enter' button."

I tried "Dionne Warwick Inaugural Ball" as a password. That didn't work.

Cheap Seats Daily will monitor all the Ultilmate Tailgate Party developments.

So what?

***

Laron Landry's fashionably late entry was the big news of the Redskins OTAs. For all the good and bad reasons, Landry's the closest thing the Skins have to Sean Taylor. He's burned the base several times with no-shows at fan events, and now he's got Jim Zorn looking as stupid as Joe Gibbs used to when asked about Taylor's whereabouts. Zorn's claim that he was calling the wrong cell number trying to get in touch with Landry is as embarrassing to the franchise as Larry Landover. Because of age, I'll recuse myself from commenting on Landry's newly pierced face.

***

The Federal Courts may have weighed in on the Redskins side, but the team's name controversy ain't going away until the name does. The issue has trickled all the way down to this year's Peninsula-Delaware Conference of the United Methodist Church, being held this week the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne. This afternoon conference members, representing 463 churches, will vote whether to boycott FedEx for the delivery service's sponsorship of the Redskins.

From a report in the Delmarva Daily Times:

Boe Harris of Seaford, co-chairperson of [the conference's Committee On Native American Ministries, or CONAM], said the call to boycott the package shipping company comes after attempts failed to discuss a name change for the Washington NFL team, Redskins, whose home games are played at FedEx Field, named for a sponsor, Federal Express Corp.

"We are going this path because we approached the owner of the team about this, and he is not going to change the name," Harris said. "The Redskins are local to us, and the term is demeaning to our warriors. FedEx owns the naming rights to the field, so they can pull out."

***

Redskins Restaurateur Update: Five Guys has the hottest hamburger in America this month, thanks to press from the Brian Williams special on President Obama. Yesterday, my always-sensationalistic AOL mail homepage had a big Five Guys feature story sandwiched between a piece on some scorned and chunky enlistee titled "I Was Too Fat for the Army" and another piece about, well, the headline tells you all you need: "Chastity Bono Changing Sex!" The Five Guys media blitz has gotta be fab news for former Redskin Mark Moseley, the team's all-time leading scorer and the first and only kicker ever named NFL MVP. Moseley helped get the chain started after his own burger and fries joints in Northern Virginia failed, and now serves as Five Guys' director of franchising. No matter big Moseley gets in burgerland, to me he'll always be the guy who in 1982 kicked that last-second field goal in a blizzard to beat the Giants at RFK, the biggest kick in Skins history.

(Check out this video reel of '82 Skins highlights, and tell me that the Fun Bunch doesn't beat the crap outta that awkward and joyless group shoulder bump the Lakers use as the go-to celebration. But, in today's NFL, the Fun Bunch would earn about 75 yards of unsportsmanlike conduct penalties every time they did their thing.)

***

Speaking of Five Guys: There was some activity during OTA's in the Five Guys Named Williams realm. The Redskins yesterday finally signed Eddie Williams, a fullback and recent seventh-round pick. Not much chance he'll displace Pro Bowler Mike Sellers this season, unless Sellers lets unhappiness with his contract impact his play. And Mike "Biggest Loser" Williams, a project offensive lineman who even after his crash diet stands as DC's fattest pro athlete named Williams since John "Hot Plate" Williams, went down with a leg injury. Any setback could be his last, since Mike Williams, a former 400-pounder, hasn't played football since 2006. Lineman Edwin Williams, a DeMatha grad and OL, spoke to Dan Steinberg of his childhood hate for all things Dallas. Receivers Jaison Williams and Roydell Williams just got lost in the team's gaggle of receivers. It'll be a miracle if come opening day the Redskins have Five Guys Named Williams on the roster. At least these five.

***

Hockey season ended for almost everybody around here several weeks ago. For everybody else, it ends tonight, with Game 7 of Pittsburgh-Detroit for the Stanley Cup. Satan's been quiet this series. Too quiet. Look out, Detroit!

The only local hockey news was broken yesterday by the great Greg Wyshynski over at Yahoo sports: Alex Ovechkin is the coverboy of the new NHL 2K10 video game, and the Only Cap That Matters will unveil the product at a party in Vegas next week.

Wyshynski, for those who aren't familiar with the Northern Virginian's work as Puck Daddy, is the Ovechkin of hockey bloggers. And there is no Crosby or Malkin.

***

Minute Manute Bol Update: The beloved Bullets beanpole has hooked up with John Zogby, he of the Zogby polls, on a campaign to raise funds for a school Bol wants to build in his native Sudan. Hope the school lasts longer than Bol's U Street restaurant.

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But because a few bizarros have caused problems at past events, this won't be your father's baseball giveaway.

Baysox spokesman Tom Sedlacek says management noticed a sorry amount of toy hoarding during Lindsay Czarniak and Pat Sajak bobblehead nights last season.

"We had some fans who bought a lot of tickets just to get more bobbleheads," Sedlacek says. "Or they'd keep going through the gates. We saw people walking around the stadium with an armful of dolls or full bags of dolls poking out."

So management has been reduced to resorting to strongarm tactics to try to ensure that the bounty goes out to all deserving fans. In announcing the Wieters giveaway, the following disclaimer was put in bold type: "Fans must have a ticket to the game to receive the figurine and will not be allowed to exit and re-enter the stadium until all the figurines have been distributed."

Yup, if you want a doll, you're gonna give up your rights to move around. You'd have to go to Yankee Stadium during the playing of "God Bless America" to find such fascism in baseball.

I can see how consumerists trying to make a buck off a Sajak likeness or a perv wanting to take home a piece of Czarniak, but...Matt Wieters? The guy now hitting about .143?

"Yes, there will be [prospectors] who will try to get a lot of his [figurines]," Sedlacek says. "He's looked at as the hope for the entire Orioles fanbase."

BTW: a Czarniak doll, which is at least as macho as the Sajak doll from the neck down, is going for about $69 with postage on eBay. Maybe it ain't just pervs...

That's big news, in the same way that "Adam Lambert Is Gay!" was big news yesterday. (Kudos to whoever wrote the headline for the Lambert story in Strasburg's local paper: "Adam Lambert Says He's Gay; Also, Sun Rises in East")

And anti-kudos to the headline Sports Illustrated gave its baseball draft story: "Nats' days as laughingstock may be over with Strasburg on board."

Who wrote that? The "Mission Accomplished!" guy?

Strasburg, "on board?" The Nationals have a recent and sordid history of not signing their top draft picks. Aaron Crow, the kid who sat out a year rather than sign with the Nats last year, remember, was still available last night when Washington used their second first-round pick. And if the Lerners think Crow's people played hardball, wait till Strasburg's agent, Scott Boras, starts not talking. Boras knows the Lerners credibility tank is on E since the Crow debacle. And he won't sign for anything less than a record amount for a draftee, because, well, Scott Boras breaks records.

Speaking of records: After the draft party, the Nats dropped another one, 3-2 to the Reds. That puts Washington at 15-41, that's a 119-loss pace and leaves the Nats 12 games out of second to last place in the NL East.

Bottom line: The Nats days as a laughingstock ain't over!

***

Via DCsportsfan.com: St. Albans alum and now UVa. star Danny Hultzen will be the starting pitcher in the Cavaliers' opening game of the College World Series on Friday versus LSU.

Hultzen went 9-1 for Virginia this season.

More impressively: He went 2-for-4 against the Nats top draft pick, Steve Strasburg, a week ago in UVa's NCAA playoff game against San Diego State.

Clearly, if the Nats could only get Hultzen onboard, their days as a laughingtock would be over.

***

Orlando's win over the Lakers last night means Abe Pollin will continue to hold a Biggest Loser sorta record for a while longer. The Magic had lost seven straight NBA Finals games before topping L.A.

Pollin's Baltimore and Washington Bullets lost nine in a row in the 1970s.

Awesome trivia about those Bullets teams: They made the NBA Finals FOUR TIMES in the decade. FOUR TIMES!

And, of course, the Bullets actually won one, in 1978. Awesome trivia about that win that can't be written enough: Only nine teams, one of which doesn't even exist anymore, have celebrated championships in the 31 years since Pollin held the trophy over his head in a locker room in Seattle. The NBA titlists club is by far the hardest clique to break into of all the major sports. It's for repeat offenders, for sure. The list of post-Bullets winners:

Los Angeles Lakers -- eight titles

Chicago Bulls -- six titles

Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs - four titles

Detroit Pistons -- three titles

Houston Rockets -- two titles

Philadelphia 76ers, Miami Heat, Seattle SuperSonics -- one title apiece

That's it. So 22 of the NBA's current 30 teams, or slightly more than 73 percent of the squads, have never had a parade.

So, thanks for '78, Abe! Me and Art Thiel remember!

***

Seattle sportswriter Art Thiel recently wrote a column recollecting the Bullets' last trip to the finals, a five-game loss to the Supersonics. Thiel used the memories to blame the game of pro basketball for the town's loss of interest in the NBA.

"[T]he NBA game that the Sonics so splendidly expressed in those two seasons, is no longer," Thiel wrote. "A form of the pro hoops championship will again be available starting this week between the Los Angeles Lakers and Orlando Magic. Individual players on each side will be remarkable, and the outcomes and series may be close, but the game itself will be a shadow."

Watching all the Kobe Bryant clearouts and LeBron James clearouts, and sitting through the last minutes of the two most recent Lakers/Magic games, which took forever even without the premature confetti, I kept thinking about how little there is to quibble with Thiel's geezerly whine. For crissakes, NBA telecasts used to be two hours for a 48-minute game; the game's still 48 minutes, but the telecasts take closer to four hours. How?

***

John Feinstein, the Garth Brooks of sportswriting, has another book. "Are You Kidding Me?" is about the Tiger Woods/Rocco Mediate duel in the 2008 U.S. Open. Feinstein is to Father's Day what 1-800-Flowers is to funerals. He's got something for the occasion.

***

More in today's Washington Post on the rumors that WJFK will soon switch to sports talk. Can't be good news for Dan Snyder, who has had a monopoly on the genre since buying WTEM, also known as Sportstalk-980 and ESPN-980, last year.

That purchase, like all of Snyder's Red Zebra radio operation, seems to be a disaster.

Though WTEM is the most listened to frequency in Snyder's stable of low-watt, low-rated sports stations, it's only the 19th most popular station in the DC market, according to the Post piece. The other stations Snyder owns don't attract a big enough audience to even garner a rating.

I'm beginning to wonder if Snyder is really rich.

Can this market support multiple sports stations? Stay tuned! No, really! Stay tuned! It's ok to use the "Stay tuned!" kicker in a radio story!

***

The third year of the kids triathlon camp kicks off June 15. The camps are a cooperative project between the DC Department of Parks and Recreation and the organizers of the Nation's Triathlon.

This year, a third youth triathlon camp, at Benning Park Community Center, will join the existing camps at Turkey Thicket and Kenilworth Parkside Rec Centers.

McDonald's is the primary sponsor. Face it: Nothing fights our country's youth obesity epidemic quite like a McFlurry and fries.

***

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Today, the Nats lost more than just a game (the team got blanked 7-0 vs. the Mets), the Nats also lost use of its pyrotechnics. D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin put at least a temporary end to the stadium's fireworks displays. Rubin attended today's game, and after a fireworks display for the National Anthem ordered them to be stopped. Why?

Fireworks debris had fallen on the fire chief. According to a source familiar with the dustup, the chief then got super testy---at one point, invoking his fancy fire chief title.

Fire Department spokesperson Alan Etter confirmed the basic account via e-mail.

"[Rubin] said debris did fall on him - he was not hurt," Etter wrote. "He did have a safety concern, that's why the decision was made - so the process can be examined and adjusted, if necessary."

The firework company had been launching its pyrotechnics since the Nats called RFK home. The company's work had been vetted repeatedly. We're awaiting comment from the firework company. There's much more to this story.

Update 7:35 p.m.: According to a source, Rubin was hit with paper debris.

According to a fire department document obtained by City Desk, the fireworks company had a permit for its work at the Nats stadium. There are also clear lines of responsibility regarding fireworks safety. It appears that Chief Rubin overruled one of his own firemen when he shutdown the fireworks.

The document states that department "provides site safety for the pyrotechnics shot at the Nationals Ballpark on game days. The shoot is from the rooftop.... The shoot consists of multiple shots (National Anthem, team-on-field, and any home run/victory)."

The document goes on to state:

"It is the responsibility of the [fire department] inspector to communicate with the operator any observed risks or deficiencies and take the necessary actions to prevent injuries or damage. It is also the responsibility of the inspector communicate with the Nationals Command any observed risks or events that could lead to injury or damage."

Rubin would have had to overrule his own on-scene fire inspector to halt the fireworks displays.

"I know there's something going on. The fire inspector, it wasn't his call. The actual fire inspector on duty. I know it wasn't his call. It was 100 percent Chief Rubin's call and he was just there for the game. He wasn't there for official business," says a source familiar with today's events. The source says the fireworks were completely safe; there had been no complaints until today.

Fluttering-post-launch-paper debris, the source contended, was normal.

Rubin was not exactly diplomatic when he argued for the fireworks to be shutdown. According to the source, Rubin at one point told authorities: "Do you know who I am?"

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.