The latest on the Washingtonienne thing: the Senator for whom she worked is supposedly Mike DeWine, Republican from Ohio. The woman, still unnamed, was a staff assistant (or “staff ass,” in Hill parlance), and supposedly a mainstream media piece will be written about this sooner rather than later.
Even if he doesn’t deserve it, expect this to taint DeWine forever, much like Santorum on Santorum. And just as the Lewinsky and Chandra Levy scandals forever sullied the word “intern,” I think this will do the same to the term “staff ass.”
And in the meantime, here’s a great Chandra-era Andrew Sullivan piece about the history of politician/intern romance in our nation’s capital.
UPDATE: She's back! At least, someone claiming to be her is back. Couldn't anyone have just grabbed the Blogspot name?
UPDATE II: Here's the first mainstream treatment, apparently a syndicated Gannett story. Not much new, except that the staffer has not yet been officially fired.
Posted by Stephen Silver at May 19, 2004 05:23 PMI thought about doing that yesterday--wish I would've.
Sounds like it's fake, though.
Posted by: Jeremy Wahlman at May 19, 2004 08:16 PMof course, Sen. DeWine will be more infamous for not only not banging the intern himself but for firing her when he found out she was banging others.
Posted by: LilB at May 20, 2004 11:52 AMdude, that site is fake ... she writes about "ObL" ... think about it.
Posted by: LilB at May 20, 2004 11:55 AMLilB, staff assistants are one rung up the ladder from interns: they're full-time employees who get paid (though next to nothing). And it certainly does seem like an deliberately outrageous exaggerated parody site, although I can't be sure given that I never read the original.
Posted by: Dave J at May 20, 2004 05:28 PM