A Rendezvous With Destiny

By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Sunday, May 27, 2007

Here's some advice: If an old friend suddenly calls you up out of the blue and asks to meet for a drink at a certain hotel bar -- Hey, how about the Pentagon Ritz?-- do not go!

And if you must go? Bring your lawyer.

An otherwise lovely and impeccable four-star hotel that is a magnet for wealthy business travelers, visiting athletes and other celebs, the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City has somehow emerged as ground zero of Washington scandal culture. Despite the fact that it's actually in Arlington. Or maybe because it's in Arlington -- safely across the river from notoriously surveilled hot spots like the Watergate and Marion Barry's Vista -- felonious VIPs or their future unindicted co-conspirators feel like they can really, you know, let their hair down.

1997: Sportscaster Marv Albert is indicted after an incident in which he attacked a longtime female friend and bit her back while staying at the Ritz-Carlton. He pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery in exchange for prosecutors' dropping charges of forcible sodomy; loses his NBC job but is rehired a few years later.

1998: Linda Tripp, wearing a wire, meets her former Defense Department co-worker Monica Lewinsky for drinks at the Ritz-Carlton and gets her to discuss her relationship with President Bill Clinton. Days later, federal agents confront Lewinsky in a sting operation at the same hotel.

2005: FBI agents videotape Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) accepting a leather briefcase filled with $100,000 in cash from Virginia investor Lori Mody, who is wearing a wire during the exchange at the Ritz-Carlton. Though he remains under investigation, he has not been charged with any crime.

2007: Phone records released by Deborah Jeane Palfrey show that the so-called "D.C. Madam" made frequent phone calls to the Ritz-Carlton; her lawyer says the hotel was a favored spot for her employees to meet clients for the "dates" he claims were non-sexual and perfectly legal.

Gore and the Gipper Go Tome to Tome

Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason" and Ronald Reagan's "The Reagan Diaries" were both released Tuesday, and the two books have been neck-and-neck in sales on Amazon (Gore is No. 3, Reagan No. 5) and Barnes & Noble (Reagan 3, Gore 4) Web sites. How do they stack up?

"The Assault on Reason"

Launch gimmick: Gore kicked off his national tour Tuesday night in L.A. with screaming fans hoisting "Re-elect Gore 2008" signs; was interviewed by satirist Harry Shearer.

List price: $25.95

Pages: 320

Weight: 1.2 pounds

Author photo: A leaner-than-life Gore squints heroically into the sun.

Front flap hyperbole: "A visionary analysis of how the politics of fear, secrecy, cronyism, and blind faith has combined with the degradation of the public sphere to create an environment dangerously hostile to reason."

Google hits for book title: 1.2 million

Beach read?: Only for true wonks

"The Reagan Diaries"

Launch gimmick: Nancy Reagan told ABC's Diane Sawyer it's hard to be a widow; appeared with son Ron on Chris Matthews's "Hardball."

List price: $35

Pages: 784

Weight: 2.6 pounds

Author photo: The Gipper, wearing a suit and tie, dominates the front cover.

Front flap hyperbole: " 'The Reagan Diaries' provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader."

Google hits: 145,000

Beach read?: Only for true believers

UPDATE

At last, a happy ending -- we hope -- to the Artomatic saga: A week after glass artist Tim Tate retrieved part of his lost sculpture via an elaborately jokey ransom drop, a benefactor bid $1,500 for the new artwork Tate is creating from fragments of the old.

Best of all: The buyer appears to be a genuine fan -- someone who says he fell in love with the original sculpture and hoped to buy it long before its disappearance from the Crystal City art event turned it into a Reliable Source sensation.

The original piece, called "The Rapture," was an etched glass "reliquary" containing a toy rocket ship. The buyer, a Virginia man who refused to be identified in print, saw it on Artomatic's opening night. "There's something that appealed to me about it," he said. But when he came back a few days later, it was gone.

The Virginian followed the saga as it unfolded in this column -- the ransom demand for $10,000 in Monopoly bills, our crazed under-cover-of-darkness trip to the Mall with Tate to meet the masked fellow who identified himself as "The Collector," the manifesto he left behind about society failing to value its art. When Tate vowed to make a new sculpture and auction it on behalf of Artomatic, the "Rapture" fan was the sole bidder. He declined to be identified for fear of becoming a target of The Collector or a copycat.

"I know they were trying to make a statement about underappreciated art," he said. "But I appreciated it before they even started this."