Over the years, we've had as much fun as any other readers when it comes to tweaking the Washington Examiner. But, really, in hyping non-existent Big Brother schemes or publishing comically slanted screeds against bike lanes that just happened to inconvenience parking spaces near the paper's office, our local right-wing tabloid was only doing its job—ie, being a local right-wing tabloid.

That identity, though, may not sit so well with certain members of the Examiner's extended corporate family. This week's New Yorker features a lengthy profile of the paper's owner, Philip Anschutz. The story focuses mainly on Anschutz's entertainment-industry exploits, notably his innovations in building stadiums, and the ways his Southern California entertainment complex has become a lightning rod in local Los Angeles politics.

The media-averse Anschutz doesn't comment in the story, but Anschutz Entertainment Group C.E.O. Tim Leiweke does. And, in one passage, he talks about the difficulties of representing a conservative mogul before an overwhelmingly liberal city government:

Although the Anschutz newspapers belong to a division, Clarity Media Group, that is affiliated with A.E.G., Leiweke insisted that Clarity is not under his aegis. "I don't need any more loss leaders. The Examiner in D.C.—not good."

The good news: We doubt he was referring to Harry Jaffe's controversial criticism of Harry Thomas, Jr.

That’s not to say readers will have to wait until the impending ebook release to get their Sherwood and Jaffe on. Plenty of copies are available online—for a price. If Dream City’s fate was the same as that of other tomes about race, power, and hometown D.C., its price on the secondary market underscores its lingering influence. A tale of the tape, via Amazon.com:

Book: The Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital

Author: Constance McLaughlin Green

Published: 1967

Current Price: $26.50 (used). New copies unavailable.

Book: Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970

Author: James Borchert

Published: 1980

Current Price: $18.95 (new); $2.44 (used)

Book: Marion Barry: The Politics of Race

Author: Jonathan I.Z. Agronsky

Published: 1991

Current Price: $42.14 (new); $0.01 (used)

Book: Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington D.C.

Authors: Tom Sherwood and Harry S. Jaffe

Published: 1994

Current Price: $80 (new); $39.68 (used)

Book: The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders

Author: Jonetta Rose Barras

Published: 1998

Current Price: $21.81 (new); $0.01 (used)

I'm not even sure Uncle Vince wanted to be mayor. I suspect that his friends, such as Lorraine Green and Vernon Hawkins, might have pushed him to run. What I know to be true is that challenging Adrian Fenty was not Gray's idea. A deliberative and conciliatory sort, he was happy as council chairman. Vince Gray had no burning desire to lead the District of Columbia.

As for the bossy Ms. Green, she joined other strong women such as Jerry Mason Hall and Judy Banks to build the Gray government by hiring friends, family members and the now famous Sulaimon Brown, the erstwhile mayoral candidate now at the center of a federal investigation into Gray's own campaign. Did Gray know his personnel aides were stuffing their kin in the government? That his campaign aides were allegedly paying off Brown to badmouth Fenty? A strong man in charge would have known.

In two grafs, Jaffe emasculates Mayor Gray and then insinuates that a mayor who's a "strong man" would keep the women-folk in line. Because only women are corrupt, only the most masculine of men can take care of business.

Okay, got it.

Snow began falling on Jan. 22, one day after Barry left on a trip to California to watch Super Bowl XXI (Broncos vs. Giants—New York won, 39-20). Barry had been in a semi-permanent celebratory mode since winning his third term. Three weeks before the Super Bowl trip, Barry had quietly gone to Jamaica for a four-day vacation.

After learning of the snowstorm, Barry chose to stay in California. After learning D.C. was about to be hit by a second, even bigger storm, some thought he might finally decide to return early and take the helm. But he instead stayed for the Super Bowl itself, 24 years ago today.

He stayed after the Super Bowl as well, to play tennis and get a manicure, before collapsing and being rushed to the hospital. As Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood recorded in their 1994 book Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, DC:

The day after the game Barry was in Oak View Park partying and playing poker with friends... that evening, after drinking several bottles of champagne and a quart of cognac, Barry and two women friends disappeared into a bedroom and closed the door. When the two women left the townhouse, Barry slumped to a sofa, head thrown back. His nose ran, and he made low grunting noises. The mayor clutched his chest and said he was having trouble breathing.... At Daniel Freedman Hospital Barry was given oxygen and immediately began to feel better. He told the hospital that blood tests and other exams weren’t necessary, and he was released.

The District ultimately got hit with 26 inches of snow.

D.C. newspapers, including Washington City Paper, roundly criticized Barry, who finally returned to the District six days after the first snowfall. City Paper ran a headline asking “Has Our Mayor-for-Life Gone Snow Blind?”

In a Feb. 6, 1987, Loose Lips column titled “Blizzard of Indifference,” the mayor was pounded:

The disaster in the snow brutally laid bare the grim fact that Barry intends to be a part-time mayor during his third, four-year term, which, unfortunately, is only month gone [sic].... Never has a mayor seemed more unwilling to fulfill the responsibilities of his office than Barry did last week.

City Paper compared Barry to newly-elected Baltimore Mayor Clarence H. Du Burns, who did a much better job. “With Du Burns in command, Baltimore cleared its main streets within hours after the snow had fallen, a period of time when the District’s snow trucks and plows were still as rare as the Tennessee snail darter,” City Paper wrote. (Snail darter? A reference a small fish endangered by the Tellico Dam in Tennessee.)

City Paper also attacked D.C.'s congressional delegate at the time, Walter Fauntroy, for similar negligence. Fauntroy was in D.C. during the 1987 blizzard, but we reported that:

“Fauntroy—who spends much of his time pouting because people won’t call him “Congressman” instead of “non-voting congressional Delegate”—is not about step forward... Fauntroy was more concerned with currying favor with his congressional colleagues by giving them expanded parking privileges in the District than he was in trying to help the city cope with the snow and ice that shut down the federal government and further frayed the already-strained relations between the District Building and Capitol Hill.

City Paper concluded the situation had dashed hopes of D.C. receiving statehood anytime soon:

Barry, and to a lesser extent, Fauntroy, have become liabilities rather than assets to the District’s political future. The attainment of statehood for the District, which Barry and Fauntroy cited as one of their goals for this session of Congress, suffered a serious blow in the chaos created by the city’s inadequate and uncoordinated response to the snow. Congress is not likely to give the city more control over its own affairs after city officials demonstrated they could not even clear the streets or and keep the subways running on time, which the federal government has come to depend on to get its employees to work.

City Paper did note one positive out of the whole affair. In a separate Feb. 6 article titled "Post Finds Its Voice," City Paper wrote:

The one bright spot out rising out of the frustrations and anger over the city’s meltdown method of dealing with ice and snow appeared on the Washington Post editorial page Jan. 28. The Post’s editorial writers have been so hamstrung by criticism from blacks and so ridden by their own white liberal guilt that they have been unable to produce little more than mush when criticizing the Barry administration. But editorial writer Bob Asher’s lashing critique of the failure of "Antarctica on the Potomac" to serve its citizens and daily visitors exudes real passion...

Asher’s editorial had lambasted city officials. In one section, he wrote:

What did the city government use to get rid of snow—spoons and matchbooks? What did it do all night with the plows it does have—park them next to those Metro subway cars that were hibernating in seclusion somewhere while trusting souls were jammed along wind-whipped platforms waiting for no-show trains?

New Mayor Vince Gray has been lucky, thus far, to have escaped a major test of his administration's winter weather response. But winter isn't over yet!

According to The Associated Press, a defense attorney asked a prospective juror last week if she would be willing to hear evidence that Condit may be tied to Levy's death. Condit may end up testifying about his relationship with Levy, which he has never spoken about in detail.

But Condit isn't the one on trial. Guandique is. And it's worth revisiting a bit of overlooked history about how Guandique's name initially surfaced in connection with the Levy case.

When Levy's body was found in Rock Creek Park in May 2002, the national news media was transfixed on the apparent secret relationship between the congressman and Levy. But Roll Call reporter Amy Keller put on her thinking cap: "[W]hile my colleagues speculated on the proximity of Condit's Adams Morgan apartment to the section of park where Levy's body was recovered on May 22, I wondered if the location of her body might point to another possibility: Perhaps Levy really was the victim of a random attack."

That led Keller to sift through police reports of other attacks in Rock Creek Park. She found the name of Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant who was serving a federal sentence for attacking two women in Rock Creek Park near where Levy's body was discovered, off the Broad Branch trail.

Keller recounted her Guandique reporting in a Salon piece in 2002, including how her discovery was met with skepticism by those transfixed on Condit's connection to Levy.

A few days later, I also got a call from a reporter who has been covering the Levy investigation for the Modesto Bee, Condit's hometown paper.

"I saw your story last week," he said, adding, "I've got a theory I want to run by you." I told the reporter, whom I'd never spoken to before, to go ahead.

He then proceeded to ask me if Condit's lawyer, Mark Geragos—a high-profile criminal defense attorney and ubiquitous TV presence who had also recently represented the actress Winona Ryder—had "orchestrated" the story.

The reporter believed that it was most likely Geragos who had leaked information to me about the so-called Rock Creek Park predator so that Condit's staff and supporters would then have a news story to distribute that would make him look good. And he said that a number of other reporters had also found the timing of my story curious. It showed up in print, after all, the day after Levy's bones turned up in the park.

I stammered out a "No, that's now how it happened at all," and fought back the urge to ask him whether he was also investigating the theory that White House officials had planted Levy's bones in the park in an effort to divert attention from stories alleging they had ample warning of the Sept. 11 attacks. I also stifled the desire to tell him where to stick his theory—that none of my sources were any of his, nor any other reporter's, business.

Calmly—and probably a little too nicely—I explained that I simply used one part hunch, two cups of research and one-quarter teaspoon of source-based reporting, otherwise known as conversing with the cops. No, Gary Condit's lawyer had definitely not planted this one, I told him.

Six years later, The Washington Post published an exhaustive multi-series investigation titled "Who Killed Chandra Levy?," which brought additional attention to the Guandique-Levy connection. (Guandique was charged with Levy's murder in March 2009.) But the Post neglected to mention Keller's initial shoe-leather reporting in finding Guandique's name.

I'm a bit biased on this one, since I used to sit next to Keller when I worked at Roll Call. After Guandique was charged with Levy's murder, Harry Jaffe, in Washingtonian magazine, wrote that former Post executive editor Len Downie "gave himself and the Post credit for finally cracking the Chandra Levy case," saying that "the paper’s 2008 series on police missteps in the original investigation prodded cops to make an arrest," even though police and prosecutors said the Post's series "was irrelevant."

In the nine years since Levy disappeared, there's been plenty of finger-pointing and accusations of a botched investigation by police. Depending on what happens, perhaps Guandique's trial will bring some closure to what has gone down as one of the most intriguing and frustrating murder investigations in D.C. history.

"At a time when the District government is $500 million in the hole, allow me to suggest a quick way to slash $.2.6 million: 86 the OPC.

Born in the day when police were often accused of roughing up citizens, OPC is now redundant in an age of excessive scrutiny of cops."

Jaffe's column, written on May 12, essentially parrots the complaints forwarded from Kristopher Baumann, the D.C. Police union chief. It's Baumann's job to advocate for the rank and file; he does great work on behalf of his fellow officers. But Jaffe's job is to actually report accurately the facts, and formulate an independent opinion based on those facts. In this case,  Jaffe didn't even bother to interview anyone at the OPC.  Instead, he actually writes that the police do a good job of investigating their own.

Fortunately, the OPC's budget had zero chance of being eliminated. While Mayor Adrian Fenty had proposed cuts to the OPC, Councilmember Phil Mendelson restored the funds.

The OPC's standing was such that it didn't matter that the Examiner's columnist got his facts wrong.

In a letter-to-the-editor, OPC Executive Director Phil Eure writes in the May 26 Examiner:

"The next time that Harry Jaffe wants to propose that the D.C. Office of Police Complaints be eliminated, he should get his facts straight. Mr. Jaffe claims that the office issued only 'zero decisions' so far this year. The correct number is 172. He claims that last year, the office issued six decisions. The correct number is 338.

He further claims that the office is 'redundant' because it only gets a case after the Metropolitan Police Department has investigated and federal prosecutors have declined to prosecute. Actually, the police department does not investigate citizen complaints filed with our agency, and federal prosecutors only review complaints involving excessive force allegations — a very small fraction of the total number we receive.

Mr. Jaffe credits the Fraternal Order of Police's 'well-argued' letter to judiciary committee Chairman Phil Mendelson for making the case to 'ax' the office. Assuming that he is relying on the union's letter for the wrong statistics he cites, neither he nor the FOP has made a very good case to do away with independent police review in Washington, D.C."

The Examiner's Harry Jaffe calls it "the hottest ticket for courtroom drama in town." Albeit not the only one: just down the hall, in courtroom 320, John "Baby J" Foreman is facing a first-degree murder rap, as Jaffe found out when he showed up too late to grab a seat for the overcrowded Wone trial. Not that he's complaining: "'The Wire' ain't got nothing on this case.... for gritty drama, I got the better seat."

Over at WhoMurderedRobertWone.com, which the Post profiled yesterday, the editors are noting, among other things, the real estate turnover in the neighborhood surrounding the grisly crime scene:

Home sales remain brisk on  the 1500 block of Swann.  Either the home of the recently ID’d W-5, Scott Hixson, is under contract, or the unit adjacent to him will change hands.

This month's Washingtonian contains a lengthy story on Mayor Adrian M. Fenty penned by longtime city reporter Harry Jaffe. It's titled "His Own Worst Enemy?" and looks at the ways that Fenty is standing in the way of a Fenty re-election.

It's also notable for containing a rare-one-on-one Fenty interview, where Hizzoner, more or less, directly addresses some common criticisms.

Thus far, the mag has only posted a short excerpt of the story on its Web site. But LL, hewing to fair-use doctrine, would like to share some other noteworthy passages in Jaffe's piece:

• On the polls: "I can't spend time worrying about how I can be more popular...or how people can think better of me or like me better or how I can win a poll. What I think about is how I can make the city run better."
• On his accomplishments: "The schools are improving. Our bond rating is the highest in decades. We put meters in the taxis. Great economic-development projects across the city. Renovation of countless school facilities. All high schools are slated for renovation. The homicide closure rate and sheer number arc at a 45-year low....Look at snow removal, trash pickup, pothole repair, ease of getting driver's licenses. Nothing is foolproof...but we are handling these basic services with private-sector methods."
• On schools: "We need a new collective-bargaining agreement....That will do more to improve test scores than probably anything else we've done."
• On his weak support among blacks: '"Do you sense that at all?" I ask. "I don't know what the polls say, and neither do you," Fenty says. "You don't have any idea what the people of the District of Columbia think. And neither do I." In our interview and in subsequent e-mailed questions, Fenty declined to engage the topic of race. He said he ignores polls.'
• On alleged cronyism: 'I ask Fenty to describe his relationships with [Omar Karim] and [Sinclair Skinner]. "Good friends," he says. Does he get involved in contracting? "No."...Fenty explains: "The contracts that went their way are 1 percent of the contracts that go to the little guys. And that is about 1 percent of the funds that go to big developers."'
• On the baseball tickets: '"In hindsight," I ask, "would you have handled that any differently?" "Are you trying to tell me this is the number-one question on people's minds?" he asks. "Maybe not, but it does stick in many minds. And I want to know." "I gotta probe you," he says. "As a writer for The Washingtonian, is this your top question?"'
• On his philosophy: "You have the thesis that people are paying attention to who gets baseball tickets and how often I meet with special interests....I have a thesis that people judge a mayor on how the government works and what they get in return for their tax dollars."

Until the 'Tonian posts the full story online, go pick up a dead-tree copy, or at least peruse one in the grocery line.

The Washington Post, deploying just about everyone on staff to the story, including a feature on how families are coping, stuff on how funeral directors are coping, a piece on who won the local TV ratings (WRC-TV), and so much more.

The Washington City Paper, nailing coverage of snow-removal efforts, debates over the privatization of snow removal, in-depth reporting on disparities among streets, the whole Maria Lewis/"Louis" thing, and so much more.

The Examiner, on frustrations piling up around the region, not to mention Harry Jaffe scolding Chris Matthews for his Buffalo-Miami spiel.

Jaffe nails the classic commuter-tax angle to slam Matthews for his dig at the District for failing to clear the snow fast enough, or at all:

Most of the [complaints] came from District residents. They are valid criticisms of city agencies and workers who had to try to clear perhaps the most snow ever dropped on the District, since George Washington made it the seat of the federal government around 1800. Chalk it up to the push and shove between the government and the governed.

But when I hear talking face Chris Matthews gripe about the city's snow clearing capabilities, I'd like to shove a sock in his big mouth. Filling his MSNBC show with more nonsense than usual Wednesday night, Matthews called D.C. "a city that can't plow its streets."

Jaffe then says that if Matthews, when driving in from his "Montgomery County manse," just paid a toll at the border, perhaps Mayor Adrian M. Fenty could buy some more "rigs" and get the job done to Matthews' specs.

City dwellers are always a provincial lot. They live in tight quarters and feel entitled to lash out at people who live in plusher areas. Add to that the historic and exclusive injustices of serving as a resident of the District of Columbia: You have no meaningful representation in Congress; everyone in the region essentially pisses on you; and you have high taxes and bad schools. So when an outsider assails you and your people, the outsider is going to hear it. Expect the Matthews slams to continue into the weekend, along with temperatures in the 30s.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT—DDOT Starts Construction on 11th Street Bridge Project, Sort of; and what's up with Cathy Lanier's latest All Hands On Deck summons?

Morning all. Given all that's happening out there this week, choosing a top story of the day is a tough call, but I am going with this one: ST. Es STILL STRUGGLING—That's according to a new report completed by civil rights attorneys for the federal government and summarized by the Washington Post's Henri Cauvin. This is quite an issue. As the Post notes, the District's hospital for the mentally ill is "falling short in patient safety, nursing care and other areas covered by a court settlement intended to reform the infamous institution in Southeast Washington."

More: "Indeed, the findings reflect the steep challenges facing the District as it attempts to remake the hospital and the rest of the mental health system and to end the long-running class action suit over care of the mentally ill. From the new hospital building that is scheduled to open in March on the St. Elizabeths campus to the closure of the government's main outpatient treatment agency, the D.C. Department of Mental Health has hardly been still over the past few years.

But the pace of change has yet to satisfy the federal judge overseeing the class action suit or the Justice Department team monitoring the settlement agreement for St. Elizabeths, the only public psychiatric hospital in the city and a landmark with a long, sometimes troubled history."

After the jump: More on St. Es; what's up with the D.C. snow cleanup budget for the rest of the winter?; EPA talks tough on C-Bay pollution; can't someone generate a blog post at D.C. Wire?; and a little bit more.

One of the report's major concerns is a gang rape that occurred at St. Es in July. According to the report, the event wasn't even mentioned in "routine treatment reviews of three of the four alleged attackers. But while the documents failed to note the rape allegation, one of the alleged assailant's documents recommended, without explanation, that the patient be observed for 'sexually inappropriate behavior.'"

The bigger picture here is that the city, under the direction of Attorney General Peter Nickles, is seeking to pull St. Es out of the governance arrangement under which it currently operates—that is, with oversight from the courts and the Justice Department. No wonder that Nickles told the Post that the reform effort at St. Es "reflects real progress and a strong commitment to improving care." Examiner on same.

Older drivers are out there.

WARNING FROM THE FEDS TO CHES-BAY WATERSHED STATES: CURB POLLUTION OR ELSE! In years past, the EPA hasn't been too terribly tough on states around here that contribute to pollution in the glorious Chesapeake Bay. Now that's changing, according to Post reporter David Fahrenthold. Here's what could the feds could do if these states—and the nonstate District of Columbia—don't heed their watersheddy duties, according to the Post account: 1) "Object to state-issued permits for new sources of pollution, such as factories, sewage-treatment plants or suburban storm sewers." 2) "Require states to offset pollution in one area by cutting it in another. If a state can't find ways to curb pollution from farms, for instance, the EPA could require stricter cuts from sewage-treatment plants." 3) "Take tighter control of federal money that goes to states for antipollution programs, to make sure it is used to solve outstanding problems."

I'll bet these watershed states are quaking now! Examiner on same.

HOW MANY SEAT INCHES DO YOU NEED? That's the question at which Metro Columnist Courtland Milloy tilts. He laments that he can't get comfy on flights and he's not fat, either. Airlines assume 18 inches if good enough for a seat to accommodate the average American, whereas movie theaters and other industries are realizing that 22 is a better bet. Milloy says he measures 18 inches and still couldn't deal with his seat on the way home from Houston.

Better stock up on those quarters. That's the message from WaPo staff writer Nikita Stewart's piece on how area budget crises are going to affect parking and other activities around the region. The skinny for D.C.ites: "The District's fiscal year began Oct. 1 and brought increases in sales, cigarette and gas taxes. But there's more to come Friday, with the bag fee [five cents per plastic bag]. And by mid-January, the city will complete the conversion of 14,749 parking spaces to charge $2 an hour." Let LLD translate that for you: If you just want to make a quick stop to get a cup of coffee, you'd better scrounge up two quarters, at least. Because you're going to need 15 minutes for that ritual, especially in light of how many specialty coffee drinks are ordered these days. And 15 minutes, under these new rules, will cost you 50 cents. And don't think for a minute that you can duck in and get back out without detection by a parking goon: They're everywhere! Stewart gets some nice quote from Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans: "Nationally, people are fed up with the government nickeling and diming consumers. That's what we're doing. You can call 'em fees. They're all taxes. If it's a duck or a chicken, it's all a bird. ... Our challenge going forward is, with flat revenues, what are we going to do?"

More on the bag fee from the WaPo edit board: "The District is still days away from a new tax on plastic and paper bags, and the complaining has already started. That's understandable given the fundamental change in habit that people are being asked to make. Nonetheless, the new law is a worthy effort aimed at reducing local litter and cleaning up polluted waterways. Not only should it be vigorously enforced, but we also hope it spurs neighboring Virginia and Maryland to follow suit."

And letter writers to WaPo keep alive the great debate over the actions of D.C. Police officer Michael Baylor, he who drew a gun at a snowball fight at the corner of 14th and U Streets NW on Dec. 19. One Gerald E. Sheldon of Rockville responds to a previous letter writer who defended Baylor because he knew of someone who lost an eye during a snowball fight. Writes Sheldon: "There is not much danger to the driver after he stops his vehicle and is still inside his car. I suspect very little in the way of injuries due to thrown snowballs is inflicted on people inside Hummers. Once the car has come to a stop, the driver's exiting the vehicle and escalating the situation by drawing a gun is what causes danger, such as in the situation at 14th and U." And one Vincent M. Vacca of D.C.: "In all three Dec. 26 letters about the D.C. snowball fight and snowstorm, I noted a feeling of, if not forgiveness, then perhaps understanding of off-duty Detective Michael Baylor's pulling out his gun after his Hummer was pelted with snowballs. Is it that Mr. Baylor doesn't subscribe to the admonition that law enforcers never unsheathe a weapon unless they intend to use it?"

D.C. Wire STILL IDLE! Come on, this is getting embarrassing. I mean, it still features that Dec. 23 item on Nickles commenting on Fenty's security detail. Yeah, we all know this is dead week, but can't you just fake it or something. Yesterday, we here at LLD offered a few ideas on refreshing the blog, and nothing happens. Hasn't anyone else noticed that there's just no activity on this crucial blog? This is what it says on D.C. Wire's "about" page: "The D.C. Wire is live! Washington Post reporters will take you to the heart of the District's political life, from neighborhoods to the D.C. Council to Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's bullpen." Please, D.C. Wire contributors, make all those words resonate. Get on the phone right now, and call a source. Just update this blog, today. The way I'm counting, you guys have six staffers on this blog. You can't all be skiiing this week. We'll check in with you tomorrow.

Examiner columnist Harry Jaffe makes a strong statement in favor of increasing penalties for PCP-related crimes. Using two anecdotes of possibly PCP-related mayhem, Jaffe says that the bill of Phil Mendelson to up penalties for PCP possession is inadequate. "Mendelson has introduced legislation to make PCP possession a felony, and to suggest jail time of 'not more than five years.' Mendelson makes a good start, but as often happens with this city council, he doesn't go far enough. Rather than 'not more than,' the language should read 'a minimum' of five years. We know that PCP causes random mayhem, violence and homicide. Let's take people who use it — and make it — off our streets."

And Examiner reporter Kytja Weir has this little nugget in a piece about snow removal and budgetary difficulties: "The snow budgets could be tapped again this week. The National Weather Service is forecasting light snow or freezing rain from overnight Wednesday into Friday. The District said Tuesday it was preparing to battle slick roads when revelers descended on the city for New Year's Eve. The city has spent $4 million of its $6.2 million snow removal budget, said District Department of Transportation spokeswoman Karyn Le Blanc." WaBizJo on same.

Ben Conery and David C. Lipscomb of the Washington Times get out of the gate with the first year-end crime roundup. And the data looks good, as we've been expecting: "The year is drawing to a close with homicides in the District at a 45-year low, reflecting a national trend that law enforcement officials are attributing to multipronged crime-prevention strategies that include advances in communication and coordination. With just two days left in the year, according to preliminary numbers from the police department, the District has had 138 homicides compared with 184 at the same time last year, setting up the city to record the lowest number of homicides since 1964, when 132 were reported killed. Metropolitan Police Department officials attribute the decline to a "perfect storm" of crime-fighting strategies, including a new culture of communication within the police department."

LLD's apologies to NBC4's Tom Sherwood, for failing to link to his excellent billboard-removal story of earlier this week. As is often the case, Sherwood comes up with angles and facts that aren't in other accounts.

Police have ID'd the pedestrian killed at the intersection of 16th and Park Road on Monday morning. Also: Man arrested for 1998 murder in Northeast.

Fenty Today: 2:30 pm, Remarks: Uniform Grantmaking Procedures Announcement. Location: 441 4th Street, NW

Come on, pervs: Get your name in before it's too late!

('Course, this also means time is running out on Cheap Seats Daily's ability to run everybody's fave photo.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Does Dan Snyder's vacation choice mean he's met his Waterloo? Elba is nice this time of year? Somebody wrote something nice about Dan Snyder? Really? Was it accurate? Not really? Where'd David Donovan learn to fib? Dan Snyder's poster confiscating binge was all a prank? Will anybody get a "Goofus and Gallant" reference?)

I read in the Washington Times yesterday that Dan Snyder is in France. How Freudian a vacation choice, considering the sort of slurs thrown his way these days. (Writer David Covucci got me chuckling with a piece posted at the hit-or-miss site Bleacher Report, saying Snyder' failings have been so epic that "scholars now refer to Napoleon as having 'Snyder Complex.”')

If Snyder stops at Elba, would he be allowed to leave?

***

Nothing nice has been written about Dan Snyder for years. Three years, to be pretty exact. That's when "The Dan Snyder You Don't Know," Harry Jaffe's profile of Snyder, showed up in Washingtonian magazine. Jaffe's story has over the years been regularly posted on Snyder's message board, ExtremeSkins.com, when the Skins owner's getting the crap beat out of him. It was posted again there yesterday.

Snyder was talking only slightly less to the press then than he does now, so Jaffe must have worked incredibly hard to get a sit-down. But the story, which came out in the September 2006 edition was an Instant Classic — for all the wrong reasons. Reading it now, you wonder what date-rape drug Snyder snuck into Jaffe's tea before he started typing.

Jaffe's Dan Snyder was a Dan Snyder we didn't know, all right. His Dan Snyder is "not even close" to being a "spoiled, greedy, power-hungry rich" guy like other NFL owners.  He's "playful, and shockingly normal," a guy who goes to "Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC at 1 am with his buddies."

And, ethical? Read on!

No one has questioned Snyder’s corporate dealings. He likes to say he has never been in court.

“I am a goody two-shoes,” he says. “Business ethics are important to me.”

Jaffe had somehow missed or forgotten about the FCC's reports about Snyder's pre-Redskins business, Snyder Communications, and all the million-dollar shenanigans it pulled through "slamming," or switching consumers' phone companies without their consent. In one of the investigations into his company's shenanigans, investigators for the State of Florida found that Snyder "forged the signatures of hundreds of customers on letters of authorizations purporting to authorize a change of customer's resubscribed interxchange carrier." (The Washington Post's investigation into the Redskins relationship with scalpers, remember, included charges that Snyder's employees were forging folks signatures on season ticket contracts.)

The hits just keep coming from Jaffe. Snyder, we learn, was actually patient with Norv Turner after buying the team in the summer of 1999.

"Snyder stuck with Norv Turner through the 1999 season, which was lackluster," Jaffe wrote.

"Lackluster"?

Well, actually, 1999 was the best season that the Skins have had under Snyder. That team won the NFC East and hosted the only playoff game ever played at FedExField. Yet Snyder somehow stuck by Turner throughout the year! Bravo!

Snyder, were also told in Jaffe's piece, began charging admission to training camp "in 2003."

Well, actually Snyder charged $10 admission and $10 parking fees in 2000 — the very first training camp he hosted. The date change is important, because it shows that as soon as Snyder could gouge the fan base, he did gouge the fan base.

To be fair, there are some enlightening parts of Jaffe's tale. As Jaffe relates an anecdote that's meant to show how much fun Snyder is, we learn where David Donovan, now the Redskins Chief Operating Officer and Fibber-in-Chief learned that honesty ain't a policy with Skins management.

Take the time Redskins general counsel Dave Donovan went to his first away game at the St. Louis Rams’ domed stadium. Snyder and [minority Skins owner Dwight] Schar saw him calling his wife and family on his cell phone to say how cool it was to be in the stadium before the game. They called the head of security and asked him to send two cops and “arrest” Donovan, saying it was illegal to use a cell phone in the stadium.

Donovan was escorted across the field. It wasn’t until he got to the other sideline that they told him it was a joke.

“We were laughing so hard we almost peed in our pants,” says Snyder.

Well, we can only hope Snyder was wearing Depends when Donovan went on WJFK earlier this week to say that there weren't many Philly fans at FedEx for the Eagles game, that the Redskins don't sue their fans, that only a few posters were confiscated by security at FedEx on Monday, etc. Though, come to think of it, Donovan says he's in charge of game-day operations now, so maybe when the Redskins had their security guards escort all those people out for wearing anti-Snyder t-shirts or anti-Snyder bags or carrying anti-Snyder posters, it was all a practical joke! Donovan was just funnin' with everybody! You got Punk'd, Skins fans!

And, Jaffe quotes Snyder associate named Mark Jennings describing Snyder as somebody who won't do anything "to get the next great article written about himself.”

Ain't that the truth.

I wonder if Jaffe would write anything differently if he could.

***

By now, all that's left is for Highlights to crush Snyder, and then every magazine on the rack, and every magazine off the rack, will have crushed him. Everybody who never wrote about the Skins owner has pounded him these last couple weeks.

After the New Yorker, you'd figure most publications would figure: Why bother?

But this morning, the Huffington Post still bothered. The online pub gives Bob Franken digital column inches to come at Snyder like he took Franken's money — which, in a disclosure contained in the piece, Franken says Snyder did (as a ticketholder).

Franken goes mega macro, comparing Snyder and the Redskins to Wall Street and the U.S. economy. At least that's what I think Franken did.

You be the judge:

So consider Dan Snyder and his Redskins a metaphor...a metaphor for heartlessness and incompetence that has brought things to ruin with little hope that next season will be much better since the same people will still be running things. No wonder so many are angry. A few have played the game terribly, but it's everyone else who has lost.

So I'm not the only one screaming that this is bigger than football to the point of foolishness? Cool!

Actually, I'd like to hear Highlights take on Snyder. He's providing teachable moments for all the children. And if Art Rooney was put forth as Gallant, you-know-who would make a great Goofus.

***

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

Morning all. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty: Everyone knows he's had a bad year. A slip on the firetruck thing, a stumble on the pool heater, and a general haughtiness that casts doubt on his image as a champion of the everyday D.C. resident.

But does all that hurt his chances for re-election next year?

The Examiner kinda-sorta suggests that it does. On the front page of today's editions, it is shouting the news that just 30 percent of respondents in a recent poll say that the incumbent "definitely" has their vote.

You listening, Vince Gray?

From Michael Neibauer's piece: "The new poll, commissioned by the business-backed Nation's Capital Committee for Good Government, implies the incumbent's popularity has waned. Only 30 percent of respondents said they would "definitely" vote for him again, while 13 percent said definitely not, and 46 percent said they would consider someone else."

Implies? What does that mean. The problem with this piece is that there's no comparison with a previous set of polling numbers. The poll gives Fenty a 68 percent favorable rating and a 25 percent unfavorable rating. So, OK, fine—but compared to what? That question goes unanswered. Other points about the poll: It covers only registered Democratic voters in Wards 1, 3, and 6, leaving out Fenty's home base in Ward 4. It was commissioned by the Nation's Capital Committee for Good Government, a front for "downtown business interests," according to Neibauer. Those folks have never been too big on the mayor.

In a companion piece, Neibauer explains the implications of the poll for council races. The upshot? Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham and Ward 3 Councilmember Tommy Wells all appear safe.

Who isn't safe? Well, it's the same guy who's never safe. The guy who every four years has a target on his back, who the entire political class insists is vulnerable, whose days on the council are numbered. Yeah, Mendo: "At-large Councilman Phil Mendelson has the toughest road ahead, if the poll numbers are to be believed. Mendelson, who soundly defeated lawyer A. Scott Bolden three years ago, had the definitive support of only 32 percent of those surveyed. Thirty-four percent would consider a challenger, 8 percent would oppose Mendelson and 25 percent were undecided."

Examiner commentator Harry Jaffe also spins a piece out of the poll. Here's the key part: "Next most popular city official [after Fenty]? Council Chair Vince Gray? At-large member Kwame Brown? No and no. Most favorable ratings after Fenty went to schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The hard-charging school reformer got high favorables in Ward 3 (69 percent), Ward 6 (58 percent) and Ward 1 (57 percent)."

Jaffe also gets a laugh line out of the data: "Attorney General Peter Nickles might not want to enter any popularity contests. His fave rating was 17 percent."

Examiner's Nei-man also covers the aimless wanderings of the mayor's "blue shirts."

CHARLES COUNTY COURTHOUSE MADNESS UPDATE! OK, we advertise LL Daily as providing as much D.C. politics as "humanly possible," but recent events compel coverage of the hinterlands. Seems that a judge in Charles County may have gotten pissed enough about parking hierarchies that he allegedly deflated the tire of a car belonging to a courthouse cleaning staffer. This gem comes courtesy of the Washington Post's Ruben Castaneda: "Jean Washington, the owner of the Toyota, said in an interview that she had just entered the courthouse for her work shift when a sheriff's deputy alerted her, 'Jean, you need to move your car. Judge Nalley's going to let the air out of it.'"

Tattoo parlor entrepreneur who allegedly killed her husband will be held in jail, not in a halfway house, as her lawyer had requested.

GOOD POINT DEPARTMENT: Post editorial notes that even though Congress long ago lifted its ban on the District's paying for needle-exchange programs, language in pending legislation could have the exact same effect: "The House voted to end a 21-year-old ban and allow federal funding of needle exchange programs. It also voted to allow the District to use its own money for such a program. There's one catch: the programs cannot be located 'within 1,000 feet of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity.' This would render whole sections of cities off-limits."

Verizon Center not doing it for you? Well, the Washington Biz Journal is reporting that reps from Madison Square Garden LP are scouting the District for a new location. "The sports, entertainment and media company began contacting the office of Valerie Santos, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, and major landowners in early summer, according to Steve Moore, executive director of the Washington, D.C., Economic Partnership. 'They are shopping the District ... They're very interested. It's a question of finding the right spot,' Moore said."

Also on the development front: See breakdown from Washington City Paper's Ruth Samuelson on Fenty's unveiling of Northwest One, the Walker Jones Education Campus.

Here's a scoop from NC8: The District is preparing to close its Brentwood DMV facility. It'll cease operations at the end of the day Friday.

Lots of gunplay out there on a summer eve: Seven shot, one killed in less than nine hours in the District, according to WUSA-TV.

Fenty Today:

9:15 am: Remarks, Wheatley Elementary School Grand Opening
Location:Wheatley Education Complex, 1299 Neal Street, NE

10:15 am: Remarks, Chevy Chase Play Courts Ribbon Cutting
Location: Chevy Chase Playground, 5500 41st Street, NW

5:30 pm: Remarks, Convention Center HQ Hotel Bill Signing
Location: 9th and L Streets NW