Washingtonienne: the series

OK, for those of you who like their comedies in one act, here is the entire Washingtonienne blog from start to finish. It's not very long, as these things go. The whole thing only lasted from May 5 to May 18.

What happened? From the Washington Post, quoted in wonkette:

One Congressional Record (Or Was It?) That Everybody Read

By Richard Leiby
Thursday, May 20, 2004; Page C03

Hill staffers possessed of naughty imaginations -- and perhaps too much time on their hands -- were madly swapping theories yesterday about the identity of a young Senate aide who kept what appeared to be a detailed online diary boasting of her many sexual partners. The woman's explicit accounts of her alleged frolics -- including an affair "with a married man who pays me for sex" -- were given wide notice this week by Ana Marie Cox, the Washington cyber-gossip at www.wonkette.com, who posted the diary.

"I just took a long lunch with X and made a quick $400," the low-level staff assistant, who calls herself Washingtonienne, wrote Tuesday afternoon. "I heard that my boss was asking about my whereabouts. Loser."

That was her last entry before the Web log mysteriously vanished from its hosting site, Blog*Spot. She had earlier described "X" as a married "chief of staff at one of the gov agencies, appointed by Bush."

The scandal-provoking staffer works in the office of Ohio's senior senator, Republican Michael DeWine. "We're looking at it right now. We're looking into the situation," DeWine's communications director, Mike Dawson, told us yesterday, but declined to provide any details.

It's unclear whether any of the entries were written on Senate computers or, for that matter, whether the diary is a work of fact or fiction. But certain details ring true, such as her salary ("how can anybody live on $25K/year?") and descriptions of office romances ("The intern did not show at the party on Saturday. . . . I don't need anymore sex scandals at work. But I'm bummed that he is not as interested as I had imagined.")

Cox, who has not made public the aide's name, said: "It is no more fictional than anybody's diary. My gut feeling is that it's true. She's pretending to take pride in her own degradation and I don't think you can fake that. I do think she's a good writer. I hope that she gets a book deal and gets some therapy."

And don't miss the cartoon Wonkette also ran (this one from Roll Call).