She has repeatedly denied that mayoral ambitions drove her actions, but she doesn't deny those ambitions. In the end, it was all about Linda.
Late Monday, when the mayor and chairman were ready to announce the deal, Cropp pulled a last fast one. She insisted on shifting the news conference from the mayor's briefing room to a council-controlled room four flights up. The chairman didn't want the mayor grabbing the credit.
If the move meant TV cameras couldn't show the news, if the citizens Cropp claimed to be working for had no access to the fruits of her labor, no matter. She had won her turf war.
In the last moments of Tuesday's debate, council member Carol Schwartz shoehorned in the truth about the deal. But for some tiny changes, she said, this bill was identical to what had so deeply offended Cropp one week earlier.
Cropp rushed to call for the vote. She delivered the verdict, then quickly silenced the audience's rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Suddenly, all was right in the world: Washington had a baseball team, and D.C. politics were as divided, messed up and self-absorbed as ever. Play ball!
Join me at noon today
for "Potomac Confidential"at
www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
