This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral--Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!--In America's Gilded Capital

One of the nation's most acclaimed journalists, The New York Times's Mark Leibovich, presents a blistering, penetrating, jaw-dropping — and often hysterical — look at Washington's incestuous “media industrial complex.”

The great thing about Washington is no matter how many elections you lose, how many times you're indicted, how many scandals you've been tainted by, well, the great thing is you can always eat lunch in that town again. What keeps the permanent government spinning on its carousel is the freedom of shamelessness, and that mother's milk of politics, cash.

In Mark Leibovich's remarkable look at the way things really work in D.C., a funeral for a beloved television star becomes the perfect networking platform, a disgraced political aide can emerge with more power than his boss, campaign losers befriend their vanquishers (and make more money than ever!), “conflict of interest” is a term lost in translation, political reporters are fetishized and worshipped for their ability to get one's name in print, and, well — we're all really friends, aren't we?

What Julia Phillips did for Hollywood, Timothy Crouse did for journalists, and Michael Lewis did for Wall Street, Mark Leibovich does for our nation's capital.

Mark Leibovich is The New York Times Magazine chief national correspondent, based in Washington, D.C. In 2011, he received a National Magazine Award for his story on Politico's Mike Allen and the changing media culture of Washington. Prior to coming to the Times Magazine, Leibovich was a national political reporter in the Times' DC bureau. He has also worked at The Washington Post, The San Jose Mercury News and The Boston Phoenix, and is the author of The New Imperialists, a collection of profiles on technology pioneers. Leibovich lives with his family in Washington.