By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 6, 2006
Three men walk into a bar: a lawyer, a political commentator and an ethnobotanist.
All three are named Mark Plotkin.
No, really.
It's the joke the three men have lived with for decades. The serendipitous nexus of geography, heritage and ambition has resulted in years of mistaken identity for three Washington area men with wildly different occupations, yet names identical but for their middle initials.
In their own circles, they are high-profile figures in demand for vastly disparate reasons. Now, if only people could keep them straight.
Mark E. Plotkin the lawyer gets blamed for audacious things the political commentator says. Mark J. Plotkin the ethnobotanist -- famous for plant exploration in the Neotropics and Amazon conservation efforts -- gets calls at midnight seeking comment on political scandals. And Mark L. Plotkin the commentator gets calls at even stranger hours from rain forest shamans looking for the ethnobotanist.
"It's not easy being named Mark Plotkin in this town," sighed Mark E. Plotkin, a partner at one of Washington's premier white-shoe law firms, Covington & Burling.
The three have traced their roots to regions in Russia, Belarus and Lithuania. These areas, as well as the Ukraine and Poland, are filled with Plotkins, many of whom fanned across the globe during the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1800s.
A search of public records turned up at least 28 Mark Plotkins living in the United States, most in California or the Northeast.
Given how relatively few there are in the country, it's remarkable not only that three live in Washington, but that there were once four. Mark A. Plotkin eventually decamped for Miami, feeling vaguely embarrassed that he was "just" a librarian.
"I felt like such a failure in Washington with such a name," the former U.S. Supreme Court librarian said from his post at the University of Miami's law library. "I knew my place in the world, so I left for Miami."
If there is one Mark Plotkin most responsible for turning them into household names, it would be the political commentator.
As far back as 1976, the commentator known for his puckish and pugilistic interviewing style was spouting off in a Washington Post story. A young political operative, he was skewering former vice president Spiro T. Agnew. Confusion quickly followed. At cocktail parties that weekend in Potomac, the parents of the lawyer -- then a teenager -- got grief for their son's supposed effrontery.
"My parents were so embarrassed," he recalls.
Years later, one of his bosses at the law firm pulled him aside to warn that he'd be thrown off the partner track if he kept being so politically vocal in print.
The commentator and lawyer have bumped into each other on social occasions, not always amicably. But the first time the three Mark Plotkins got together was when they accepted a reporter's recent invitation to lunch.
Plotkin the lawyer, tall and bookishly awkward, arrived wearing a charcoal suit, red power tie and blue shirt. Plotkin the commentator, with his fireplug stance, wore no tie and had a finger that wouldn't stop jabbing at others to make his point.
Plotkin the ethnobotanist, in his black, mandarin-collar shirt and black slacks, brushed-back mane of silver hair and tribal beads that shot from beneath one of his cuffs with every handshake, watched serenely as the other two scrapped.
Mark L. ordered the salmon. Mark J. ordered the lobster. Mark E. ordered the shrimp curry.
The ethnobotanist, 51, hails from New Orleans. He headed east for school -- Harvard, Yale and Tufts -- and settled in Washington. His name is often preceded by adjectives such as "world-renowned" and "intrepid."
The lawyer, 45, grew up in Potomac. He, too, attended Yale and Harvard. He is an expert in banking and security, and on behalf of Fortune 500 clients he has negotiated many national security agreements with the government.
The commentator, 59, came from Chicago to Washington to study American history at George Washington University. He never really left, except to teach in Chicago for six months. He worked on a succession of campaigns for such blue-chip Democrats as Edmund Muskie, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern and Edward M. Kennedy.
He also had a memorable, albeit short, stint at Harvard.
"You know, I've always wondered why I was asked to speak at Harvard," the commentator said. He described a childhood spent with a Harvard pennant pinned to his wall and a college career that never reached the Ivy League heights that his family hoped to instill by buying the little Plotkin the collegiate suggestion.
"Then, out of the blue, they call me. And ask me to speak. It was this dream come true," he continued.
The ethnobotanist chuckled quietly as the story unspooled.
Once he arrived on campus, the commentator recalled, he inhaled the gravitas of the institution and wished his family could see him.
"But nobody showed up to hear me," he said. "They very kindly told me that they'd still pay for the trip, even though no one showed up. But I always wondered why Harvard University singled out such a major peripheral figure like me."
The ethnobotanist laid down his chopsticks.
"It was at a conference in Bellagio, Italy, I met a very attractive Pakistani journalist who was about to go to Harvard as a Neiman Fellow," he said. "She asked me to speak at Harvard while she was there. Then I got these e-mails from her telling me that it was all coming along. But that was the last I heard of it."
The commentator was silent for a minute.
"Oh," he said.
Long pause.
"They wanted you. Not me."
The ethnobotanist merely smiled.
There were times when the globe-trotting PhD was mistaken for the commentator.
"My first week here in Washington, I got calls from [House Speaker] Tip O'Neill's office, Ted Kennedy's office and Marion Barry's office," he said. "I thought, 'What a welcoming town!' But when I called them back, I realized it wasn't me they wanted."
For years after the lawyer's house in Potomac became one of the first $1 million mansions featured in Washingtonian magazine, the political commentator couldn't get a raise because nobody believed he needed the money.
The lawyer said he always dutifully forwarded calls to the commentator "except for your creditors," he said. "There were a lot of those."
"But I will admit, I took advantage of this situation just once," the lawyer confessed.
It was at the time of a Marion Barry scandal, when a radio station woke up the lawyer about 1 a.m., asking for comment about the D.C. mayor.
"It was late, but I couldn't resist. I used some choice words to describe him," the lawyer said. "And they went with it."
The commentator remembers this one. "And I called you the next day to tell you that you're having a little fun at my expense."
Given their differences, the men's paths might never have crossed were it not for the mix-ups caused by their names. In the 1970s, when the ethnobotanist was about to receive a master's degree from Yale University, the Office of Student Affairs presented him with a bill for $22,000.
"I was on a full scholarship. I didn't know how that happened," he said. But when he took a closer look at the bill, he noticed the Social Security number wasn't his.
That's how he learned about the lawyer, then an undergraduate.
"But I knew about you earlier," the lawyer said. "Do you know how many lab fees I kept getting charged for? I never set foot in a lab."
Utility companies, creditors, universities and bosses have all mixed them up. The Washington Post ran a correction in 2004 after pairing the lawyer's photo with a story about the commentator.
All three agreed that one agency has routinely tracked them down year after year with pinpoint precision, never once mistaking one for the others:
The IRS.
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