What Hath Stephanopoulos Wrought: The Return of the Bitch
To recap: Account of Stephanopoulos talk includes barb at bitchy staff assistant [BSA], which leads to smack down of interns, which prompts bitch slap of both interns and staffers, which produces a slew of sucker punches and further comment! And we thought interns were just for fucking!
One correspondent writes to confirm initial assessment of the BSA:
I am good friends with a Senate counterpart to the bitchy staff assistant, who works for the House. I, too, nearly choked, on a Dr. Pepper, after reading the post on Wonkette and knowing that my friend was involved. Her response:
HAHAHA-soooooo funny........
The girl that represents the house side, [XXXXXXXXX], is who they are talking about and she is a bitch. So funny because I told her there was NO need to yell at the interns and she got published.
how embarrassing. Her office has been making fun of her : )
But BSA also has at least one defender:
A couple of thoughts on the "bitchy staff assistant." I've never met this woman, but I had her job in 1998. It's a lot of fun because you get to meet and interact with bold-faced names all summer, but the interns definitely can be a pain in the ass.
Generally speaking, I've found a much higher concentration of spoiled rich kids among Hill interns than among Hill staff. Members of Congress are perfectly willing to have useless but politically-connected lumps hanging around the office for a couple of months giving tours and opening mail, but when it comes to permanent staff they prefer to have at least a few people in the office who are competent.
"Bitchy staff assistant" may be a spoiled rich kid. I don't know. But I would assume that, like most Hill staff, she lives on her $25K without parental assistance by sharing a crowded house, eating and drinking for free at receptions and happy hours, and working insane hours instead of having an expensive social life.
The whole Hill community finds a friend in this correspondent:
Not all people who come to work or intern on the hill are "living on mommy and daddies money." While I'm sure the a majority do, some people are actually chosen to be interns and move on to staff through hard work. As a son of a high school teacher and hardware store worker who had no political connections, I'm tired of this assumption.
Not all of us were born with silver spoons up our ass.
And this Wonkette operative may have just learned how to use sarcasm:
I enjoyed beating up on Hill staff as much as the next guy... until my girlfriend--working class, up to her eyeballs in debt, recently out of college--got a job there. It turns out she wanted to, like, contribute to society and stuff--imagine that. She thought that working on the Hill might give her good experience for the future when she wants to help steer the government towards helping the working class and making world peace, you know, all those things that have been shat on for the past three years.
The point is, when I go to her office and brave my way through corridor upon corridor of self-important assholes, I usually meet a couple of cool, good-hearted people. So lighten up on the "all hill staffers are scum" rhetoric people!
I've offered to help subsidize her salary with my paltry non-profit paycheck, by the way, but no back-door action yet. I'll keep you posted, or maybe I could just start a blog...
What Hath Stephanopoulos Wrought? [Wonkette]
Stephanopoulos's Line of Sight: Wonk'd Gets a Response [Wonkette]
Wonk'd: We Ask for Stephanopoulos, We Get Stephanopoulos Edition [Wonkette]