Marc Fisher kinda stole my thunder on this post, which I had been saving until I could get a definitive answer from the Marion Barry camp—which has been hard, since Barry is back to not talking to LL. But Fish has the Barry scoop, and here’s the complete list of the District’s elected officials and their presidential preferences:

CLINTON
At-Large Councilmember David A. Catania
Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham
Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans (D.C. campaign co-chair)
Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh
Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr.

OBAMA
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty
Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray
At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown
Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser
Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells
Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander
Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry
Shadow Rep. Mike Panetta
Shadow Sen. Paul Strauss
Shadow Sen. Michael D. Brown
Acting Attorney General Peter Nickles (not elected, but LL ran into him at the Wilson Building yesterday and surprisingly got a straight answer)

UNCOMMITTED
At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz
At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson

And if you haven’t already, watch the video.

UPDATED, 3/7

Do you love Barack Obama? Do you want to share in his inspiring come-from-behind victory/soul-crushing defeat/some sort of unsatisfying third outcome with like-minded fellows?

The young grassroots crowd is favoring Busboys & Poets, 1390 V St. NW. (LL recommends you stay away from the lousy panini.)

The older, not-so-grassroots crowd is doing Georgena’s (aka Players Lounge), 2737 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. (LL recommends you not stay away from the mac and cheese.)

Just in case you weren’t convinced by Marc Fisher that Barack Obama and Adrian Fenty are in fact the same person, know that Fenty happens to have innate knowledge of Obama’s emotions. To wit, this dispatch from the New York Observer:

Adrian Fenty, the mayor of D.C., is here at the Obama…party?

How would he feel in Obama’s position?

“I’d be thrilled,” he told me. “I know personally that he’s ecstatic.”

Oh, had he spoken to Obama tonight? “No,” he said.

Last night, the D.C. Democratic State Committee held its holiday party and presidential straw poll at the 18th Amendment bar on Capitol Hill.

The big winner: New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who won a narrow victory—55 votes to 49—over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. John Edwards, Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, and Bill Richardson captured another 18 votes between them.

The other big winner: The District Dems themselves, who seem to have righted the ship after nearly depleting their bank account earlier this year (Loose Lips, “Democrats’ Checkbook Dwindles,” 4/27). According to committee chair Anita Bonds, the committee has money in the bank (she declines to say how much, citing still-pending bills), thanks largely to the group’s Kennedys-King dinner last month—the first such dinner in three years. “We’re in much better financial shape, and we’re grateful for that,” she says.

Event organizer Phil Pannell says the party helped line the coffers, raising about $2,000 in $10-a-head door fees. It’s almost enough to comfort Pannell, an Obama supporter: “To be honest about it, I was really surprised he lost,” Pannell says. He says 34 ballots that went unreturned might have made a difference. “Maybe people just got caught up in the party,” he says.

If so, he’s got no one to blame but himself. The night’s entertainment was karaoke, and the room didn’t show much interest in taking the mike before Pannell kicked things off with a snappy “Mack the Knife.”

From there, it was showtime for the east-of-the-river council delegation, past and present: Former Ward 8 Councilmember Sandy Allen did Etta James‘ “At Last,” and Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander indulged in a solid rendition of Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 classic “What You Won’t Do for Love.” After LL left, Alexander reports, she switched to more contemporary repertoire and gave an encore rendition of Jill Scott’s “My Love.”

But Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry stole the show with a ferocious take on T-Bone Walker’s classic “Call It Stormy Monday.” Barry later sang back up for a rendition of the Temptations’ “My Girl.”

His performance may have been enough to capture some hearts and minds: There was one write-in vote—for Barry.

NB: LL has a dark, fuzzy photo of Barry at the mike, but he’s having trouble getting it off his phone.

One of D.C.’s most annoying blowhards is crying foul (again). Perennial protester Adam Eidinger is complaining on the Adams Morgan message board about getting arrested during Monday’s recent anti-war/anti-global warming demonstrations.

Eidinger writes:

Dressed as a polar bear I was incarcerated for lawfully demonstrating at the US Capitol at the No War No Warming protests Monday. All the polar bears arrested are planning to fight their charges on November 15 when we appear in DC Superior Court on charges of unlawful assembly. The direct action of simply singing and dancing is not a crime. Police shouldn’t be so overbearing …. just because its time to step it up on ending war and global warming before its too late, is no excuse for cracking down on the lone voices who a few years from now will be the ones who got it right, just like the groups (I among them) who protested the war in Iraq 6 months before it started.

Eidinger doesn’t say whether he was blocking traffic on Independence Avenue or doing the arm-lock thing at an entrance to the Cannon House Office Building. Police had given the traffic disruptions as a reason for the arrests. Nor does Eidinger charge the police with using Pershing Park style tactics when they arrested him.

Eidinger just uses the news of his arrest as a way to pitch for more volunteers and to preach about the war. Great. Eidinger has been working this same schtick for years. Has he ever done anything more substantial than blocking traffic and vomiting up anti-Bush rhetoric in a city that is already very much anti-Bush?

Eidinger also seems or at least pretends to be woefully naive. Let me see if I understand this—the man dresses up in a polar-bear suit and stages a protest in a heavily fortified part of the city. Is it a surprise that he got arrested? Wasn’t that the point? If he didn’t get arrested, would there have been any press coverage? You can’t willfully play in traffic and not expect the police to notice. If police didn’t notice, the Post wouldn’t have either.

You just can’t complain about your arrest if that was the whole point.

There’s one thing in Eidinger’s message board rant I can get behind. He lists all the items seized by the U.S. Capitol Police:

Item Taken by USCP
Cost/Value
One Large Wagon (Red Metal and Wood trim)………$60
One 250 watt powered speaker……………………………$800
One Microphone……………………………………………….$100
One Pitch control CD Player………………………………. $40
One 1500 watt mobile power battery and inverter…….$440
Approx 60 music CDs……………………………………….. $900
One Large Chrome Courier Bag w Purple Fur…………$120
Various XLR and RCA Cables………………………………..$60
Approx 20 handmade paper mache polar bear masks…$200
Approx 6 Handmade Polar bear hoods……………………..$90
Approx 4 pairs of handmade Polar bear gloves…………..$80
One Stainless Steel Thermos …………………………………$20
Two Stainless Steel Water Bottles……………………………$20
Two dozen Alpsnacks snack bars…………………………… $50

TOTAL Value/Cost basis……………………………………….$3,100

No one should have to endure getting their Alpsnacks snack bars taken from them. No one.

Earlier this week, D.C. Art News scribe Lenny Campello and Seattle Post-Intelligencer art critic Regina Hackett hashed out the significance of this lede by the Washington Post’s Jacqueline Trescott in a piece about artist Jacob Lawrence:

In its recent renovation of the Green Room, the White House has given a place of honor to a newly acquired masterpiece by Jacob Lawrence, one of the greatest African American artists of the 20th century.

Why the “African American” qualifier? Hackett fires, “Because white appears to be this writer’s assumed context, she notes only difference, black as a special case.”

Jacob Lawrence, The Builders, 1947. Tempera on board.

Campello and Hackett has since moved on to squabbling over whether Lawrence was a nice guy. But here’s a question: Is the painting a special case?

In the context of the august halls of the White House, most definitely. A phone call to the office of Betty Monkman, the curator of the White House, reveals that, while Lawrence’s painting isn’t the sole piece by a black artist in the executive mansion, it’s close to it—there are only two others. A decade ago, there weren’t any. Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (1885) also hangs in the Green Room, its home since 1996. And an 1892 painting by one “Bannister” (they likely mean Ed Bannister) acquired last year is currently undergoing conservation. That’s three of an estimated 375 total in the White House’s art collection.

With the shooting of 14-year-old DeOnté Rawlings by off-duty cop James Haskel this week, Mayor Adrian Fenty has been faced with a classic test of urban political mettle. A police-involved shooting is full of pitfalls—step up to defend the cops too vigorously, and neighborhood anger gets stoked; don’t give enough support to the cops and you’ve got a pissed-off force to deal with.

Fenty’s first move: Let the feds figure this out.

On Wednesday, Fenty held a press conference on the John A. Wilson Building steps with police Chief Cathy Lanier, where he announced that the U.S. attorney’s office would be conducting an independent investigation. The mayor’s announcement got great press: The next day’s Washington Post story led with “Federal prosecutors assumed the lead role yesterday in the investigation into a D.C. police shooting” and was accompanied by a photo of Fenty and Lanier with a caption about how the U.S. attorney “is conducting an independent investigation.”

The accolades have continued. For instance, on today’s D.C. Politics Hour on WAMU-FM, Examiner reporter Michael Neibauer credited Fenty for “quickly moving it out of their hands, into the U.S. attorney’s office.”

LL agrees that Fenty deserves credit, but more for his PR skills than for his principled decisionmaking. You see, the U.S. attorney’s office oversees just about all criminal investigations in the city. After all, the District doesn’t have its own criminal prosecutor; one of the vagaries of the District’s colonial status is that the federal Justice Department is charged with prosecuting crimes under District law.

Every fatal shooting involving a police officer is referred to the U.S. attorney’s office, says Channing Phillips, spokesperson for that office. “That’s the standard procedure in these types of cases,” he says.

In fact, city police will continue to play a pretty central role in the investigation. It’s the police department’s Force Investigations Team who will actually do the nitty-gritty of interviewing witnesses and reconstructing what happened on Monday evening. The FBI will also be involved in the investigation, but even that, Phillips says, is not an uncommon occurrence.

The only thing out of the ordinary, Phillips says: “Usually you don’t have the mayor’s office announcing [it].”

Fenty spokesperson Carrie Brooks says there was no decision made in the mayor’s office or elsewhere in city government to change any procedures.

Says Brooks: “We wanted just to highlight that this was not the police department investigating themselves.”

The cloture vote to bring the D.C. voting-rights legislation to the Senate floor has failed 57-42, leaving the bill unfilibusterproof.

Maybe next time.

Kudos to Mayor Adrian Fenty, who was working the Senate floor throughout the vote. (He has Congressional floor privileges ex officio.)

On Aug. 1, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton’s office put out a press release touting a “major Katrina anniversary hearing in New Orleans” to be held Aug. 27. Talk about a no-brainer: For two years, the Katrina debacle has been a winning issue for Democrats, and Norton has done a lot of work on Gulf region aid as chair of a House subcommittee. Now, with opinion polls showing Congress’ popularity sinking, why not take the show on the road for the disaster’s second anniversary?

But Aug. 27 came and went without any hearing, in New Orleans or elsewhere—and not a peep from Norton’s office about the cancellation. What happened?

Turns out the anniversary would have been a convenient date for politics, but not for the politicians: Despite lining up New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco as witnesses, Norton “could not get a quorum of committee members because they were either out of the country or on vacation just before Labor Day,” says spokesperson Doxie McCoy.

A new date for the hearings, she says, has not been set.

From time to time, gay men, congressional pages, activist bloggers, and undercover police officers will accuse Idaho Senator Larry Craig of getting uncomfortably close.

Last February, my friend Erik sat next to Craig on a flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport–the scene of the senator’s latest run-in with gay-sex solicitation. Now, Erik’s as boyishly handsome as any undercover gay-sex-room cop on the beat.

But, according to Erik, though he and Craig chatted for the entire flight, the senator didn’t so much as tap his right foot suggestively in his direction. “We had a seat between us, and he never moved over, nor did he ask me to,” Erik says.

In fact, he says, Craig stayed uncomfortably far away. “My neck,” Erik says, “was sore from looking so far to the side the whole time.”

Perhaps you’ve seen his question-marked Mini Cooper parked outside of the T.G.I. Friday’s. Perhaps you’ve seen him projected upon the National’s JumboTron, a single question mark tracing the curve of his back. Perhaps you’ve read about him in Washington City Paper. Surely, you’ve seen this Riddler-suited, bespectacled man spouting promises of Free Money! From the Government! (For only $39.95 + $6.95 postage and handling!)

Next week, you’ll get your chance to see him in the flesh, as local author, minor celebrity, and question-mark enthusiast Matthew Lesko descends upon the U.S. Capitol for a sleepless 72-hour Q&A. Lesko calls it a “Leskathon.” Its goal? Free. Money.

Fittingly, questions abound. How will an already off-kilter personality keep it together for three days in the 90-degree heat with no sleep? How many bystanders will simply pass by and, in a moment of inspiration, scream, “Free Money”? For a guy with an apparently insatiable addiction to question marks, isn’t a 72-hour Q&A nothing more than an irresponsible bender? And when is this thing, anyway?

I turned to the “Talk to Lesko Live!” feature on Lesko’s Web site for some pre-Q&A Q&A. Instead of live Lesko, however, I got “Kelly,” who, while live, I suspect lacked Lesko’s expertise and trademark whimsy.

[Kelly] hi
[Kelly] how can i help you?
[Visitor] I’m looking for information about the upcoming event on the National Mall.
[Kelly] it’s going to be held Aug 14 thru Aug 17
[Kelly] 72 hours
[Visitor] And he’s going to be there the whole time?
[Kelly] yes
[Visitor] How is he going to stay awake that long?
[Kelly] He’s Matthew Lesko.

He’s Matthew Lesko. And when you’re mounting a “Leskathon,” maybe that’s all you need.

On Sunday, Deborah Howell became the Post’s first Omboobsman. Or is it Omboobswoman? Either way, Howell, the newspaper’s ombudsman, devoted her entire piece to a discussion of Hillary Clinton’s breasts.

Howell’s spotlight on Clinton’s cleavage followed a July 20 article in which fashion editor Robin Givhan described Clinton the following way:

“She was wearing a rose-colored blazer over a black top. The neckline sat low…There wasn’t an unseemly amount of cleavage showing, but there it was. Undeniable.”

Givhan went on to analyze the significance of Clinton’s cleavage. “Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman is asking to be objectified, but it does suggest a certain confidence and physical ease.”

Givhan’s boob shot caused quite a stir. Angry letters poured in to the Post and the Clinton campaign publicly denounced it.

But I think Givhan was well within her rights to zero in on Clinton’s breasts. Since her entrance on to the national stage, Clinton has been dogged by questions of femininity and sexuality. How she responds to those questions, verbally or sartorially, is significant. Our persistence in asking them is even more so.

The same goes for Bush. As Richard Goldstein pointed out in the Village Voice years ago, Bush’s flight suit during his “Mission Accomplished” speech brought a whole new meaning to the word cockpit.

The Clinton candidacy isn’t all about breasts. But it is partly. It’s about whether the country is ready for a woman president. “Hair matters,” Clinton once told an audience at Yale. So do boobs.

As you might have heard, the South has been much on the mind of City Paper staffers this week. Accordingly, I’ve decided to learn about all things Southern. For my source text, I’m using the copy of the new edition of Gone With the Wind that just arrived in my office. (I took a peek at some pages toward the back for a hint of life in the South. “If you intend to play nursemaid, you might try coming home at nights and sober too, for a change,” says the Scarlett character to the Rhett character. Southerners are complicated!)

I’ve also checked in with the new issue of one of my favorite magazines, Intelligence Report, an excellent journal published by the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. The magazine covers white-power groups, anti-immigration initiatives, and other manifestations of institutionalized racism. It’s always compelling reading, and among the features in the Summer 2007 issue is a Q&A with American University professor Robert A. Pastor, who’s been accused of leading a secret plot to merge the United States, Mexico, and Canada into an ungodly super-union. That’s made him the enemy of Lou Dobbs and at least one person who dubbed him a “globalization pimp.”

As Intelligence Report sees it, Pastor has simply performed research that’s been integrated into the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a bureaucrat-heavy effort to work on trade and terrorism issues. And since the leading organization arguing that Pastor’s efforts will destroy civilization as we know it is the John Birch Society, it’s hard to disagree. I haven’t studied the matter closely—heck, I’ve barely gotten to the front door of Tara—but Pastor successfully writes off the conspiracy mongering as so much nativist bunk. And in the Q&A he reveals a dry sense of humor in the process. “There has always been xenophobia in America,” he says. “A fear of the world, a fear of American engagements in the world, a desire to isolate the United States as a way to protect America’s precious bodily fluids.”

As you’ve surely read by now in your dog-eared copy of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council’s “2007 Hot Dog Month Planning Guide,” today is National Hot Dog Day.

And pork-lovin’ Capitol Hill, for one, can’t wait to get its hands on those greasy meat sticks. At noon today, the American Meat Institute will be shilling them out by the thousands to staffers and interns—possibly the biggest paycheck they’ll get all year—at their Annual Hot Dog Lunch.

But—boy, must their face be red—PETA’s scheduled their National (Veggie) Hot Dog celebration for the same day—and will be shilling out vegetarian dogs at the same time, and in the same location!

In a couple of minutes, outside the Rayburn House Office Building, they face off.

Here’s a run-down:

Star Power:
Dogs—unnamed former Major League Baseball players
Not-Dogs—former Playboy playmate, “Foxxy News” correspondent, and tanning salon owner Lauren Anderson

Access:
Dogs—Invitation only
Not-Dogs—Open to the public

Rationale:
Dogs—To celebrate the golden anniversary of National Hot Dog month
Not-Dogs—To show off hot, half-naked women and—er—publicize animal-rights issues

Condiments:
Dogs—Idaho potatoes, Texas Guacamole, and San Francisco sourdough buns
Not-Dogs—Lettuce bikinis

Show up at noon to see how many congressmen and MLB veterans you can spot staring openly at carefully-hung lettuce leaves as they chew on a weiner.

So Adrian Fenty’s announced that the District will be appealing the federal court decision overturning the D.C. handgun ban to the Supreme Court.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Have you been reading the papers, your honor? You don’t have to be Linda Greenhouse to realize this court will care for the sovereignty of the District about as much as it does for the sovereignty of high-school students to spout vaguely drug-related nonsense.

Not sure who the constitutional-law genius was who had the mayor’s ear on this one. The macho we-gotta-stand-up-for-our-rights talk is admirable, but even Clarence Darrow wouldn’t take this case to a court where it not only probably won’t win, but threatens to impose bad law on the rest of the country, too.

I can see it now, though: Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, concurring, opt for an overreaching treatise establishing once and for all an individual right to bear arms, while Roberts and Kennedy somehow find a way to make the decision apply only to nonstate districts, possessions, and territories.

You really want to screw Guam like that, Adrian?