Worst idea of the day: For the right bid, you can have lunch with neocon mastermind "Dumb Dougie" Feith, or Paulie Wolfshit, or "Slick Dickie" Perle

Where's Dougie? Not at Wednesday's hearing of the
House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution

This stomach-upsetting news comes to us from our pal Al Kamen's Washington Post "In the Loop" column today. The good news is that since it's a silent auction, with e-mail bids accepted, to bid on one of these, er, prizes you don't even have to attend tonight's fundraiser for Young Professionals in Foreign Policy at the City Tavern Club in Georgetown. (Until 5pm you can buy tickets online for only $35. Tickets at the door are $40.)

YPFP describes itself as "a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to fostering the next generation of America's foreign policy leadership."

Indeed you can lunch with a Democrat if you prefer. Like Norm Mineta, who served briefly as commerce secretary at the end of the Clinton administration and as far as I know is still the only Democrat to serve in the Bush regime cabinet, as secretary of transportation. Okay, the roster also includes former House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Lee Hamilton and onetime Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta.


If we read the YPFP Silent Auction information correctly, five people will get to lunch with each of the hosts, "more than 20 of DC's best young professionals." (Uh, we're not suggesting a check of birth certificates. "Youngness" is after all a somewhat subjective quality. But according to Wikipedia, Young Paulie Wolfshit -- to pick a random example -- turned 65 in December. We're just saying.)

Bidding is likely to be especially stiff for "Dumb Dougie" Feith in the wake of his no-show Wednesday at Rep. Jerrold Nadler's Judiciary Committee subcommittee hearing. (His lawyer, you'll recall, explained that Dougie was touchy about testifying alongside "the likes of" that meanie Larry Wilkerson, who as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell said of him in 2005, "Seldom have I met a dumber man." In another item today Al Kamen points out that Wilkerson "was simply agreeing with Gen. Tommy Franks, who famously called Feith 'the [expletive] stupidest guy on the face of the earth.'")

December 6, 2005: Chimpy the Prez thanks Iraq Study Group co-chairs Jim Baker (right) and Lee Hamilton (left) for their report, promising not to read it and to ignore every word of it, and adding, "Ya like my red tie?" It would cost you those big GOP campaign or corruption bucks to lunch with one of the Repubs, but Dem Lee is up for bid tonight.

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