Legal Tender: Grandpa the Lawyer

Two days after D.C. super-lawyer Bob Bennett released his new memoir, yet another VIP client landed in trouble -- John McCain, with the New York Times' controversial story about his friendship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman-- and suddenly Bennett was on every TV channel holding forth.

Fortunate timing for a new author? Actually, the opposite: The well-connected Bennett said he had already scored the airtime to flack his book; he then used his moments on camera to defend the GOP front-runner and shift the debate to media ethics.

"I've always said: It's better to be lucky than good," he said with a laugh at a party in his honor Friday night at the Hay-Adams.

He's the Other Bennett: Big brother to conservative pundit Bill and a former federal prosecutor turned go-to guy for bigwigs in peril -- Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, Paul Wolfowitz in the World Bank ethics scandal, Judy Miller in the CIA leak investigation. In "In the Ring: The Trials of a Washington Lawyer," he writes: "I have often felt that being born in Brooklyn and having a few hundred street fights under my belt was better preparation for practicing law here than receiving law degrees from Georgetown and Harvard."

But he was a big softy Friday night, doting on wife Ellen, his daughters and new grandchild, greeting a crowd heavier on friends and neighbors ( Esther Coopersmith, Steve Trachtenberg, Mac McLarty, a whole lotta lawyers) than former clients. He told us that all trial lawyers are deeply superstitious (in court, he always makes a point of mentioning his girls and their favorite storybook character, Alice in Wonderland) and that he was reluctant to write about his childhood. But then he realized how much his parents' divorce, his mother's drinking and his role as a big brother molded him as a lawyer: "What really turns me on in the law is when I have an individual to protect."

The A-List on the District's UP List

Oh, fess up: You, too, spent the weekend scanning the 8,000-some names in the D.C. government's "unclaimed property" list, a 14-page supplement in Friday's Post.

Truly, it's riveting. Among the careless VIPs who lost track of paychecks, bank accounts, stocks, jewelry or rebates they can now claim from the city: John McLaughlin, Greta Van Susteren, Gene Sperling, Patricia Ireland, Renee Poussaint, Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Ali Wentworth, comedian and wife of George Stephanopoulos, was thrilled when we found her name. "Fascinating! I have no idea what it is. You mean I own an estate in the Bahamas that I'm unaware of?" Lobbyist/superhostess Juleanna Glover was also baffled: "I don't own anything valuable enough to put in a safe-deposit box, except kids and they won't fit. I bet it's an old gym bag filled with moldy clothes."

HEY, ISN'T THAT . . .

¿ Dave Chappelle getting a cup of coffee at Dean & DeLuca in Georgetown Saturday around 8:45 a.m. The D.C.-born comic was solo and unassuming as ever in a green parka, fur-lined hood, bluejeans with a rip in the knee, and new white low-top Adidases. Introduced to a fellow customer described as his "biggest fan," Chappelle grinned: "Man, I've been looking for my biggest fan!"

'SNL's' Instant Knockoff

Will Hillary Clinto n's surprise cameo on "Saturday Night Live" give her a boost with Texas and Ohio voters? Oh, who knows -- more to the point, how'd they manage to get her and Amy Poehler in matching blazers? The senator did a brief skit with "SNL's" in-house HRC imitator, each of them wearing a brown nipped-waist two-button jacket with black trim on the lapel and pockets.

Turns out Clinton's blazer is her own -- the same one she wore at Tuesday's debate in Cleveland -- and the "SNL" crew got to work suiting up Poehler in something similar for a debate sketch. (Photographic analysis suggests the senator's fabric is slightly nubbier.) So in Friday night conversations with Clinton staff, producer Lorne Michaels and writer Seth Meyers asked if she could simply show up wearing the same thing. "Our wardrobe department," said a rep, "is that good."