What's Wrong with "This Town"?

What's Wrong with "This Town"?
Politics & Prose - Politics & Prose Bookstore
Mark Leibovich, author of "This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral--Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!--in America's Gilded Capital," scathingly critiques the "me-first" political culture permeating life inside the Beltway.

Washington-This Town-might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation's capital, just millionaires. That is the grubby secret of the place in the twenty-first century. You will always have lunch in This Town again. No matter how many elections you lose, apologies you make, or scandals you endure.

Through Leibovich's eyes, we discover how the funeral for a beloved newsman becomes the social event of the year. How political reporters are fetishized for their ability to get their names into the predawn e-mail sent out by the city's most powerful and puzzled-over journalist. How a disgraced Hill aide can overcome ignominy and maybe emerge with a more potent "brand" than many elected members of Congress. And how an administration bent on "changing Washington" can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath.