Except today. The hand-sent edition of Playbook just landed at 1:56 p.m., though it was posted at 7:05 a.m. on Politico and arrived in lower-profile inboxes within ten minutes. So Allen attached an apology in the version he sent out to his personal list:

APOLOGIES to the faithful members of this friends-and-family list for Playbook's aloha schedule today. Playbook went out to the wider world normally. But I send to this list personally, and it turns out I was migrated overnight to an email system that didn't have BCC, and will only send to a few addresses at a time. So thank you for your patience and encouragement, and we'll figure out something better for tomorrow morning.

Since most of the people that the advertisers who pay thousands of dollars a week to reach through Playbook probably get it from Allen directly, you can bet they'll have it fixed pretty fast.

If the Roberts—one raised as a non-observant Jew in Bayonne, N.J., the other the daughter of a prominent Washington and Louisiana family whose mother would go on to be U.S. ambassador to the Vatican—can write a Passover book, who can’t? Here are some possible sequels for local and national power-player projects inspired by Our Haggadah, complete with excerpts:

The Tommy Boggs Hagaddah. Why should Cokie be the only member of the Boggs family to help guide your seder? Surely her older brother, senior partner in the most powerful lobbying firm in town, has some helpful insight. Excerpt: “Rabbi Yosi the Gallilean said: How do you know that the Egyptians were stricken by ten plagues in Egypt, and then were struck by fifty plagues at the sea? And his public affairs advisor replied: Rabbi, I’m paid to know that sort of thing. And if Pharaoh had hired my firm, he would have been stricken by five plagues. Seven, max.”

The Sally Quinn Hagaddah. For years, the former Post Style section writer and husband Ben Bradlee have been the ultimate Washington hosts, at least as far as the national political crowd is concerned. Quinn was fired from her column on entertaining after she inexplicably devoted one last February to the plans for her son's upcoming wedding. But that doesn't mean she can't help you pull off an A-list seder. Excerpt: "Why is this night different from all other nights? On all other nights, lawmakers, journalists, and lobbyists gather in Georgetown to circulate conventional wisdom over white wine (not red, lest it stain the carpet if spilled.) On this night, they are gathering over cocktails, instead of wine, because who doesn't like a nice springtime martini?"

The Kwame “Fully Loaded” Brown Hagaddah. The Passover story focuses on the gratitude of the Israelites for how God led them into the Promised Land. This version, by the chairman of the D.C. Council, also focuses on gratitude. Excerpt: “How many levels of favors has the D.C. Government bestowed upon us: If it had supplied our needs in the desert for 40 years, and had not fed us the manna—dayenu, it would have sufficed! If it had fed us the manna, and had not given us the Lincoln Navigator—dayenu, it would have sufficed! If it had given us the Lincoln Navigator, and the interior had not been black-on-black—dayenu, it would have sufficed! Actually, no, it would not have sufficed.”

The Mike Allen Hagaddah. Every morning, Politico Playbook subscribers receive an odd mix of one part news, one part birthday reminders (usually correct), one part copied-and-pasted spin, and one part travelogue of the life of one of the city’s most omnipresent journalists. Between posts, Allen has also written a Passover book. Excerpt: “POLITICO Playbook, presented by Manischevitz—Senior Pharaoh administration sources say Israelites could be released from bondage soon, but not because of carping from opposition pols. Pyramid mindmeld: The Pharaoh is taking decisive leadership to end a debate that has dragged on for generations. Also, he was a little freaked out about the frogs.’ Birthdays: Moses is 3-5; Rabbi Eliezer (hat tip: Rabbi Tarphon).”

Staffers at TBD.com, launched with great fanfare by Politico's parent company last summer, were informed one at a time this morning by editor Erik Wemple that significant layoffs were on the way, and then told whether they were among those laid off. At least 12 staffers, and possibly more, will lose their jobs. Wemple (who left a job as editor of Washington City Paper to go found TBD) is not one of them.

"TBD will become a niche site on arts and entertainment," Wemple says. "We are building out a big new presence on WJLA.com."

The layoffs, according to two staffers, eliminate the site's sports staffers, and will also take away most, if not all, of its news staff. Though TBD's editorial-staffing policy eschewed hiring into traditional beats like city hall or courthouse reporters, it had staff assigned to blog, tweet, and do longer stories about topic areas, including several regional neighborhoods, as well as local pedestrian life.

"They're laying off half the staff," says a TBD staffer who requested anonymity to discuss the changes. "Pretty much all the news people."

After a launch that was praised as visionary by journalism professors and others who spend their days pondering the troubled industry's future, TBD had a harder time becoming a must-read for ordinary news consumers—a perhaps inevitable challenge given the size of the D.C. region and the website's genesis in a merger between Allbritton's well-established WJLA-TV and its new web property.

TBD founder Jim Brady left after three months. Several weeks ago, it was announced that WJLA manager Bill Lord would be given authority over both his station and the website. At the same time, officials announced plans to give WJLA its own website and strip the TBD branding from Allbritton's local News Channel 8 cable station.

"I still have concerns about whether it’s going to exist at all in a year, because I don’t think a lot of the public pronouncements they’ve made have born out over time," Brady tells City Paper. "It was pretty publicly stated when we started that we had a three to five year runway... We’ve gotten some pretty good buzz. [The site] hasn’t been perfect, but there’s nothing that’s happened since we launched that would suggest the massive changes that are being made are really necessary."

The change also means the end of TBD's community-engagement effort, which, at least in the early days, saw the site cultivating relationships with a network of local bloggers via regular bar-room get-togethers. Some of the news-side people may be able to keep working for WJLA, but they will have to re-apply for their jobs.

"They’re saying it’s financial. That, basically, they don’t see the lines crossing any time soon," says a staffer.  The logic, though, baffles those who came in with the understanding that Allbritton would be patient with its novel new property. "We all came here under the expectation of that widely-quoted 'three-to-five year' ramp."

Several sources described a funereal scene this morning in the website's Rosslyn newsroom, which TBD shares with Politico, WJLA, and the freshly rebranded News Channel 8. Several staffers appeared to be in tears.

Around the District last night, it wasn't hard to find somewhere to go watch election returns filter in. Local Democrats gathered at Love. National Democrats, for some reason, had a fancy party downtown; second-hand reports made clear it was only the place to be if you were required by your job to be there, and then you still might have wanted to gamble on whichever politician you worked for losing, so you couldn't be punished for failing to show up. House Republicans held what they insisted wasn't a party at the Grand Hyatt, lest they be accused of celebrating their electoral good fortunes against the backdrop of the lousy economy that helped bring them about.

And then there was Politico. The not-quite-four-year-old master of the 24-hour news cycle threw its own lavish bash in the Newseum, taking the opportunity to plaster its brand on every available inch in the building; the elevator from the street featured a Politico logo on the button for the floor partygoers were heading to. In the event space, there were massive televisions everywhere (including a lonely one showing corporate cousin TBD TV's coverage of local returns), mostly with the sound off, and a crush of lobbyists, people who work for companies that advertise with Politico, a handful of reporters, and a sad cluster of Democratic operatives who managed to dodge any of the official wakes their colleagues were hosting.

The vibe was a throwback to the days when media companies actually made money (which Politico executives say it does): There were lamb chops, and sushi, and little cones of raw tuna topped with caviar; duck and chicken dumplings kept arriving on tables for waiters to deposit them in Politico-branded Chinese takeout containers. There were designer cocktails with topical names: "The Donkey," "The Elephant," "The Politico," "The Tea Party" (made with sweet tea vodka, naturally). Staffers for Politico's frothy "Click" gossip section wandered around the room with microphones, which at first didn't make much sense to me—until I wandered into another room and realized there was a closed-circuit TV broadcast going on for the party. (Apparently, it was also streaming on the Web.) On a wall-sized high-definition screen behind one of several well-stocked bars, Politico editors Jim VandeHei and John Harris and Playbook mastermind Mike Allen sat at a desk, analyzing election results (and, in Allen's case, frantically thumbing through his BlackBerry) in between interviews with party attendees. VandeHei was wearing two watches, one on each arm; they were the kind the paper's P.R. staff was giving away as favors to departing guests near the elevator, plastered with Politico logos. Occasionally, they cut to their Rosslyn newsroom, where reporters who were still covering the election for the website and today's paper would take a few minutes to answer questions from their bosses, their faces towering over the bar via satellite.

For a bash thrown by a news organziation that's branded itself as the only source you need for up-to-the-nanosecond information about national politics, the party was surprisingly unhelpful in actually following the election returns. It was too loud, and too few of the TVs had any volume. And weirdly, no one was reacting to any of the calls any of the muted TV anchors made. Probably because to the lobbyists and defense contractors who made up the bulk of the crowd, little was actually going to change; they might have an easier time getting some requests filled, but mostly, a shift in power just means a shift in which offices you need to visit to get legislative favors.

Only when I was on my way home later, to sit down in front of a laptop and actually look at what had been going on around the country, did it dawn on me how strange it was that Politico even threw a party to watch election returns in the first place. What, exactly, were they celebrating? With the partisan parties, that would have been obvious—even the Democrats managed to find a few silver linings last night, after all. Politico, though, just reveled in the fact that an election was happening, without any judgement one way or the other on the outcome or the policy changes that outcome might mean. Which isn't a novel way of observing what goes on in official Washington: The permanent establishment in national politics always finds ways to adjust, pretty rapidly, to whatever even-year Novembers bring. What was new last night—what's new in the way Politico treats government and politics, on election night or otherwise—was the idea that the whole thing ought to be sexy.

As I left, I stuffed a couple of rubber iPhone cases (Politico logo-ed, of course) in my coat pocket to give to friends as joke gifts. The watches VandeHei was wearing were all gone already. And the party was still hopping.

Photo by Mike Madden

Confused? Back in August, news broke that the Rev. Sun Myung Moon wanted to buy back the Times from his his son, Preston Moon. Per Keach Hagey:

The sale represents a return to the paper’s old guard, and has widely been interpreted as the paper’s founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon, reasserting control over the 28-year-old newspaper that has been one of the most public faces of his sprawling business empire.

More on this later ...

The text ads that run every day in Politico's Playbook tend to fall into one of two categories.

There are the general "We're an honorable business!" messages, run by corporations like Microsoft ("we're committed to providing the technology people need to live and work creatively and productively"), McDonald's ("when we reduced the trans fats in our fries, we wanted to do it right. In the end, we reduced them to 0 grams per serving"), or Intel ("Our economic future depends on innovation and investment"). Presumably those businesses figure the $15,000 a week it costs to sponsor Mike Allen's morning musings is a good way to build up their reputation with policymaker types, a kind of investment in brand equity inside the Beltway.

And then there are the specific "Washington, do our bidding!" messages. Like one recently by Politico corporate cousin NewsChannel 8, opposing the Comcast/NBC merger: "The Comcast/NBC monopoly would present serious problems for local news in communities across our country. Washington’s decision makers must resist the pressure from Comcast and take the necessary time to carefully review this controversial merger to protect the public interest." Or from the Catfish Farmers of America: "Congress voted more than 20 months ago to provide greater protections for American consumers by moving inspection of ALL catfish — imported and domestic — from FDA to USDA, with its tougher safety standards. We’re still waiting."

The ad that ran in Playbook this week, though, was something else entirely—a shot across the bow of a rival. You just had to look closely to see it.

The morning digests this week were sponsored by Google. At first, the message seemed fairly bland: "When you’re online, you should be in control. With Google Privacy Tools you can see and manage the information you share with us." But the timing was interesting—Google's ad ran the week The Social Network, the new movie that's critical of Facebook, opened, sparking quite a bit of discussion about what the changes Facebook had wrought on modern society and culture. Those changes include, of course, the sharing of users' data with partners and advertisers who support Facebook. (Of course, Google stockpiles a tremendous amount of data itself. Take me, for example: My City Paper e-mail, and my personal e-mail, both use Gmail; I sync my address book between my computer and my BlackBerry with a Google program; I give out my Google Voice number as my cell phone number, so Sergey Brin and Co. generally know who's calling me and when. Google could probably reconstruct my life and habits pretty accurately if it wanted, even if it doesn't have the photos and other personal info I've given Facebook. But the ad wants you not to worry about any of that.)

In that light, the contrast Google was aiming for was hard to miss: Facebook may tell all your friends which Washington Post stories you've read, but Google won't. Pretty clever, isn't it?

Photo by reubenaingber via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Which made the subject line on today's edition of Politico's Playbook a little surprising. "POLITICO Playbook, presented by Washington's NewsChannel 8—Obama links higher ed. to economy in speech at UT—Petraeus plans three-week network blitz—Justice makes deal with BP—Dan Reilly to Hoyer—TBD launches—Burton is 3-3," the morning tipsheet by Mike Allen announced. The e-mail had, apparently, been sponsored by a TV station, owned by Politico's owners, that no longer existed—as the e-mail itself went on to proclaim.

"LIFTOFF—TBD—Allbritton’s new cable channel and website covering greater D.C.—went online at 4:15 a.m. and on the air at 5 a.m.," Allen wrote. (Prompting me, I will admit, to put my BlackBerry down and take my coffee back upstairs to my laptop to check it out.) The ad by NewsChannel 8 came later in Playbook:

** A message from Washington's NewsChannel 8: If the Comcast and NBC merger is approved as is, our country risks losing a powerful part of our democracy—locally-owned, independent voices in markets where Comcast/NBC will control both access to the home and multiple channels of news. Dropping the independent news voice won’t serve the consumer—only the cable company which would also own the other news channels. Let’s make sure that any merger approval serves the public interest and protects the local news consumers you represent. **

A Politico spokeswoman, Kim Kingsley, says NewsChannel 8 bought Playbook for the entire week, which reportedly comes with a $15,000 bill. She didn't reply when I asked whether tomorrow's e-mail would be sponsored by TBD TV, the station's new name.

All that raises questions on two fronts. First, the branding. Why buy a high-profile ad under a name you just ditched that very morning? Even if the ad is switched to TBD TV tomorrow, Allbritton still missed a chance to market its new unified field theory of local media on the day it launched. For that matter, why use the ad for an anodyne message against the Comcast/NBC merger, instead of pitching the new TBD venture?

Second, the economics. Allbritton owns TBD, or NewsChannel 8, or whatever you want to call the entity that apparently dumped $15,000 of its marketing budget into sponsoring Playbook this week. Allbritton also owns Politico, which means one arm of the company collected that $15,000 check after another one wrote it. No wonder Allbritton execs say Politico is making a profit.

(Here at Washington City Paper, we're now brainstorming all sorts of new ways for house ads to show up as revenue on our books. Look for results in the next fiscal year!)

Good morning, everyone. It's Tuesday! Hope your morning commute wasn't too abysmal. On a sweaty note, today's high of 97 degrees brings a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms this evening. Don't get caught in the downpour on your way to dinner—soggy food is tragic.

In case you missed it, Politico forgot Washington wasn't just the federal government (the rest of us still exist!), and "Friday Night Lights" is all up in the District's business.

So, good Metro news for once—a derailment, but no one was on board! It's comforting to know those things just fall off when they're empty. In other news, now you can stalk yourself on Metro with SmarTrip's new website. You won't be able to add money to your card though, so you'll still be chasing after the train when you find out you have to refill again. On the bright side, it'll help you answer some puzzling questions—"Did I go to work today?" "Did I make it to work last week?" (Life really is monotonous.)

In Northern Virginia, immigration authorities have arrested 30 alleged gang members and associates, reports WaPo:

The three-day operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents targeted members and associates such Latino gangs as MS-13, Mexican Pride and Southside Locos, the immigration agency said in a statement. Twenty-nine of those arrested are men and one is a women. One is a U.S. citizen and the others are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.

You'd think that would make the streets a bit safer, all those alleged gang members locked up, but a man was stabbed during a carjacking in Logan Circle, and a woman was found dead in Brightwood Park yesterday morning. The skies aren't doing much better—the National Transportation Safety Board is looking into several near-collisions in Washington skies this year.

But there's still some good in this city. When a homeless man disappeared after promising a new basketball league and  collecting over $1,000 from local teenagers, Post readers are stepping in to help.

That's all for this morning!

Photo by brownpau. Creative Commons Attribution License.

That, at least, is the argument Politico (er, sorry, POLITICO) has plastered all over its homepage this morning, breathlessly heralding the results of a survey 1,011 Americans and "227 Washington, D.C., Elites." The poll, taken by Mark Penn, finds the D.C. elites think the country is doing much better than the schlubs outside the Beltway. And the accompanying story plays up the expansion of government and the way it's kept the region afloat economically. "Washington has been largely shielded from the economic downturn, even in 2009, when most states and cities were hit the hardest," Politico executive editor Jim VandeHei and staff writer Zachary Abramson write under the headline, "Reality Gap." The crux of the argument:

The massive expansion of government under President Barack Obama has basically guaranteed a robust job market for policy professionals, regulators and contractors for years to come. The housing market, boosted by the large number of high-income earners in the area, many working in politics and government, is easily outpacing the markets in most of the country. And there are few signs of economic distress in hotels, restaurants or stores in the D.C. metro area.

That last bit, though, isn't actually true.

Unemployment in the District, after all, was at 10.4 percent in May—nearly a full percentage point higher than the national rate of 9.5 percent reported for June. Wander around the city, and it's not hard to find the "signs of economic distress" Politico blithely dismisses (take Mt. Pleasant, for instance, or lower Georgia Avenue in Park View, or Ward 8—and its median household income of under $30,000 and 553 vacant properties). The problem is, you have to leave the McLean-Bethesda-Chevy Chase-Rosslyn-K Street-Capitol Hill axis of power that dominates Politico's world to find them.

The story, and Penn's analysis, are careful to note that they're talking about "D.C. elites," not the city as a whole. (To make the cut for the elite, you had to work in politics or policy, earn more than $75,000 a year and have at least a college degree.) But the headline and the general thesis of the piece—that D.C. is doing just fine, while the rest of the country struggles—winds up contributing to the notion that no one lives here except politicians, lobbyists and overpaid government workers. Which City Paper doesn't have to remind any of you isn't true; frankly, Politico doesn't have to remind you about that, either, since they do note in their story that government employment and contracting only accounts for about 30 percent of the jobs in the entire region. But that blinkered view, that everyone in the city moved here to work in national politics, is pretty common among Politico's readers—many of whom, after all, did just that. (Then again, Penn's other appearance in the national media this weekend was a New York Times op/ed urging Obama to double the size of the space budget—an idea that is, actually, out of touch with reality.)

Yes, the region's economy is doing better than many others. And yes, there are plenty of people with high-powered political or policy jobs who are still flush. But there are thousands of Washingtonians who don't have a thing to do with the federal government, and thousands of Washingtonians are suffering through the recession just like everyone else in the country. The implicit message of the Politico story is that we're all vultures here, living the high life as government booms and taxes go up—while honest people everywhere else cut back and suffer.

Can't wait for the next round of Washington-bashing that inspires.

UPDATE: Turns out I wasn't the only one in the District whose first instinct on reading VandeHei's story was to start typing frantically. D.C. Democratic political consultant Chuck Thies e-mailed Ben Smith this morning to note the unemployment rates in Wards 7 and 8 hover near 25 percent—which doesn't exactly put Washingtonians on Easy Street. Maybe next time, Politico won't fall into the easy trap of assuming everyone in the District lives exactly the same life as their own well-paid editors and readers do. (But I'm not holding my breath.)

Turns out, Slevin hadn't been getting along with new editor Sam Dealey. In his goodbye email, Slevin accuses Dealey of leaking to other reporters, and laments that he never got the opportunity to groom him.

Slevin doesn't like the paper's two-member board, either–he writes that they've visited the paper's office on New York Avenue a combined total of one time.

What to do if you're a Slevinite newbie without a patron? Slevin has some ideas:

1) Work collaboratively throughout the company; 2) Respond to the marketplace by putting digital first, radio second, and print products third, flowing onto newsprint as the outcome of first meeting the 24/7 customer digital demand; 3) Disperse authority in the newsroom throughout, structuring foremost to serve a digital audience. Recognize that the era of the newsroom as separate and supreme empire and editor as emperor is over.

Aw, new media bromides that even Lee Abrams wouldn't touch? How is that going to help people avoid becoming casualties in the Moon family's fratricidal war? You'd be better off attending peace festivals.

Today in The New Republic, Gabriel Sherman takes a long look at what the subhead calls the "messy collapse of a great newspaper," the Washington Post. There are some great moments in there, like when Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli kills a spider in the car of Katharine Weymouth, the Post's publisher.

Strangely, though, Sherman's Twitter feed has a lot of things that didn't make it into the story, some of which are much, much better than what actually landed. Don't worry if you told him that you call Brauchli "Count Brauchula," though—that's in there. What's not? Some of Sherman's more intriguing Tweets after the jump.

Before WP, Brauchli almost didnt get WSJ gig. Press release drafted to announce Paul Ingrassia, but Steiger protested. Brauchli won bake-off

WaPo-60 Minutes divorce: in '08, Brauchli asked Jeff Fager to pay WaPo for collaborations. 60 Mins said no. Investigative partnership over

Brauchli on bureaus: "If Hurricane Katrina hits, we'll be there. But we don't need a staff on the ground covering snow storms in Chicago."

Brauchli on WaPo's great multipart A.I.G series beating Michael Lewis in VF to the story: "He didn't come close but I bet he got paid more."

Walter Pincus proposed merging WaPo website with NYT website. But WaPo execs nixed idea. "Never been able to get it through our own people."

Walter Pincus on Politico: “It wouldn’t work at the Post. Politics is a much narrower audience...Most people don’t give a shit."

But Jim VandeHei at Politico doesn't mind. A senior DC journalist said VandeHei claims "he no longer reads the Post in any detailed fashion"

In addition to salons, WaPo wanted to plan a half dozen medium size conferences during the year and one epic conference like Davos

Downie says WP considering putting ads on A1: "There may be advertising on Page 1 as soon as this year." Weymouth wouldn't confirm or deny

Weymouth on spiders: ""I think I'm a normal person and I don't want to sleep in a bed or be in a car with a bug. But I don't have a phobia."

In 2008, WaPo execs discussed a tiered-pricing scheme, where consumers could buy a cheaper, scaled-down version of the paper. Idea didnt fly

Morning salongate broke, Brauchli went to WaPo national desk. “I didn’t know about it!” he told group of editors. “I didn’t approve flier”

What's the name going to be?

No word on that just yet. PostKiller.com, after all, is just a joke. And this thing threatens us and the Examiner and everyone else in this market as much as it does the Post.

When will it launch?

Spring 2010 is the best guess of Jim Brady, who will serve as the outlet's general manager. As GM, Brady's duties will straddle the editorial and advertising dimensions of the biz.

What's the strategic thinking behind it?

Well, it's this: Brady and his co-brainstormers at Allbritton Communications took a look at the local media landscape and noticed something: All the big competitors for Web news in the region appear to have some legacy platform, like a newspaper or a TV station, that distracts them and keeps them from putting out the best possible Web product. In swoops PostKiller.com, a balls-out site that has no such baggage and can go all-Web-all-the-time! Hold on, let me go and proof that cover story before moving on to the next question!

What about staffing?

A memo from mogul Robert Allbritton put the employees of PostKiller.com at 50-plus. According to Brady, those will "mostly" consist of editorial talent, people that can really nail it day in and day out. But there'll be biz-side staffers as well as Web producers and so on.

It's a lot of people for a start-up in the middle of a general media crisis. Brady: "To win big, you gotta bet big."

What will this new beast cover?

In Brady's words: "We're going to pick and focus on areas relevant to people's daily lives—local entertainment, local sports and commuting and development and all of those local things—local politics....We're going to find niches of interest to local readers."

Oh shit, he just basically laid out the editorial focus of the Washington City Paper! (minus the commuting stuff, which we totally ignore) Maybe call it WashingtoncitypaperKiller.com

Back to serious: Brady acknowledged that even with a robust staff, the region is too sprawling—too heavy with all kinds of "verticals"—to cover comprehensively and "win the day" in D.C., Loudoun, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax....

How is this thing ever going to fly if it doesn't have a paper edition to, like, actually bring in revenue?

Brady answers that question: "I'm still bullish on the fact that money is still going to move to Web...I think the money is there."

So the Washington Post appeared to want to make you pay big bucks for meet-ups with their reporters and editors. Politico had the scoop on the Post scheme in which Publisher Katharine Weymouth would host "salons" in which lobbyists and association muckety mucks would pay large sums of money to hobnob with Posties, Obama administration officials, and members of Congress.

Let's stop and just say it: This is/was really, really dumb. Unethical and dumb. Yesterday, Weymouth published a "Dear Reader" letter apologizing for the now-abandoned salons. It reads in part:

"A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem."

I wonder if the Weymouth has to put a stop order on the hot appetizers she planned on serving to D.C.'s elite. I hope the Post doesn't have to eat the cost of the flower arrangement orders. And I hope they got a deal on those fliers they're not going to use. Next time: Evites.

There had been a lot of dithering on the part of the Post's staff on the subject of these salons. Howard Kurtz, the paper's media reporter, suggested the events were like the New Yorker Festival. [Um, no the salons would not have been like the New Yorker Festival]. It is really doubtful that the salons would have been open to the public and given big-time ad treatment within its pages. The salons appeared to be private affairs between Washington elite.

The best takedown/summation of this scandal? You can find it at The Awl. The Shadow Editors—featuring WCP alum Tom Scocca—dissect the scandal and the Weymouth letter. It's actually funny.

I am still confused about the extent of the Post's editors and reporters involvement in setting up the salons.

*photo courtesy Business Week.

After jump, Politico memo (implicitly) thanks Washington Post for the referral.

Some good news: Bill Hamilton, one of the best editors we ever worked for and with, has decided to take a buy-out from the Washington Post. And he is headed our way.

We’ll work out many of the details on arrival date and title later. Our conversations focused on the big picture: Would there be a good fit here for someone of Bill’s experience and journalistic vision on our leadership team? He and we both decided the answer was emphatically yes.

The reasons are in front of us every day. The outstanding work we often do on big days we should be doing every day. When we fall short, it’s often because our editing structure is too taxed to give reporters and stories the attention they deserve. We need more horses in the cavalry.

Bill is no ordinary horse. Among the highlights in his decades-long career at the Post is editing David Maraniss’s Pulitzer-winning coverage of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, and helping shepherd many of Bob Woodward’s projects to publication. He brims with ideas about Washington, about national politics, and about the news business, and it’s a testament to how far and how fast POLITICO has come that Bill sees us the kind of place where he can make his ideas happen.

He has a strong hard news background. He was national editor during the Clinton impeachment drama and as assistant managing editor for politics was responsible for much of the best of the Post’s 2008 campaign coverage.

Best of all, Bill is a terrific colleague. Everyone who has worked with Bill likes him, and has benefited from his good judgment and care with copy.

We are thrilled that he will soon be in our newsroom.

John Harris

Jim VandeHei

That, at least, is the intended consequence.

A less-intended consequence is that the Post abets competing publications by hastening the departure of top talent and rewarding them for making the leap. Along these lines, some names from past early-retirement rounds jump out: Investigative wizard Sue Schmidt took a Post buyout en route to the Wall Street Journal and legendary Federal Reserve correspondent John Berry cashed out in favor of a slot at Bloomberg. Tom Edsall went to the Huffington Post on buyout cash.

The 2009 buyout season, however, could add an even more compelling tale of ship-jumping. According to several sources, longtime Postie Bill Hamilton is pondering a move to Politico. When reached on this matter, Hamilton went into non-confirm-or-deny mode: "Just not going to talk about that," said Hamilton.

Politico brass, likewise, stayed away from discussing any discussions with Hamilton, preferring the safer territory of platitudes: "I am a big bill fan," wrote Executive Editor Jim VandeHei via electronic mail. Editor-in-chief John Harris: "Bill is terrific."

Whatever terrific Bill Hamilton does with respect to Politico won't be clear till early next week. That's when the so-called rescission period for the Post buyout ends. Though Hamilton signed up for the buyout before yesterday's deadline, he has a week to withdraw and stay on at the paper. Last year, he signed up but then rescinded.

Why does all this Hamilton-related business matter?

*He's a 29-year veteran of the Post and has a deep reserve of knowledge on politics. He's currently the paper's "enterprise editor."

*Politics is at the very core of the Post's repositioned business/editorial strategy. Back in December, Publisher Katharine Weymouth, in a vague memo, decreed that the Post needed to be "about Washington." A big part of that mandate is political coverage.

*Politico is among the few must-beat outlets for the Post. The founders of Politico knew that sites that dedicate themselves to a single topic area—or "vertical," in the lingo—thrive on the Internet. The Post must beat Politico on this field while also reporting on everything else that happens everywhere else. One advantage it has had over Politico over the past two-plus years is its newsroom, a place crawling with reporters and editors steeped in national politics. With each buyout, that advantage shrinks.

There's also a moral of the story. Ever since Harris and VandeHei left the Post for Politico, the startup has been viewed within the Post newsroom as an archenemy. Staffers never pass up a chance to snicker about some Politico failing or question whether its biz model is as sturdy as its partisans contend. Hamilton has a more positive take: "It's a very friendly rivalry. It’s great competition."

Though the current buyout isn't as generous as previous ones, it provides plenty of inducement for a guy like Hamilton to take what's doubtless a nice-paying post at Politico. Among other bennies, Hamilton would get a lump-sum payment equivalent to a year's salary. For a big shot Postie like him, that's not too far south of $200,000.