Bad Timing: The Washingtonian and DSK

The June issue of Washingtonian prominently features a lengthy feature by a well-known French journalist on Georgetown’s ‘invisible man’ who hobnobs with world leaders including President Obama and who might, just might, become “the next president of France.”

You guessed it. It’s the now-notorious DSK…Dominique Strauss- Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, who at the precise time Washingtonian magazine was rolling off the presses happened to be cooling his heels at Rikers Island on ‘suicide watch’ after rape allegations against him at a $3,000 a night hotel suite in midtown Manhattan.

Oh how quickly the high and mighty can fall. And how fast what once appeared to be a promising and insightful feature story can turn into yesterday’s news to be taken out with the garbage.

The gushing piece, written by Apolline de Malherbe who now lives in Georgetown, is easy to ridicule in retrospect. But really who knew the real DSK? Certainly not his Georgetown neighbors, international jet-setters nor the fawning ‘journalists’ covering the IMF.

But there were many previous hints. And the harassing environment for women who work at the IMF has been the topic of insider gossip in the nation’s capital for at least the past 20 years, maybe longer.

The Washingtonian article even does a side-by-side comparison on DSK’s glamorous dual lives here in Georgetown and in Paris.

“A Tale of Two Cities:

In Paris: He’s known as the leading candidate to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In Washington: He’s known as a powerful relatively anonymous bureaucrat.”  (Well, not anymore.)

In Paris: His wife is known as the most famous TV journalist of the last 30 years.

In Washington: His wife is a housewife who blogs.

His home (in Paris) : an apartment in the trendy Marais neighborhood.

His home (in DC) a $4-million house next to Rock Creek Park in Georgetown.

In Paris: His romantic exploits: quietly whispered about.

In Washington: His romantic exploits: covered on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.”

Well, you get the drift.                  

To add insult to injury, the largest headline on the story misspells DSK’s last name calling him Strauss-Khan instead of Strauss-Kahn.

Fortunately, perhaps, this journalistic gem has just been posted online, according to Washingtonian editor Garrett M. Graff, just back from a trip to Europe.  You can find it at this link according to Graff: http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/people/19460.html

That’s a tad unusual because the magazine routinely serves up stories to its premier list of home subscribers weeks ahead of posting those same stories on its website.  In any event, the new June issue of the magazine is available at most local newsstands as well. For a mere $3.95 it could be a collector’s item someday. Who knows?

The magazine’s website also contains some interesting tweets about the adventures of DSK.

As Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson put it the other day: “I didn’t think this is how socialists were supposed to roll.”