Washington’s power-broking elite is shaken and stirred, and revolt is brewing over the Dom Perignon and canapés at the latest threat to the United States capital’s everyday life.
What can have so vexed the cocktail party set? A new al-Qaeda terror threat? Quagmire in Iraq? Or maybe the CIA-leak scandal swirling around the White House?
No, the salons of Georgetown are seething over fears the famous Washington dinner party, social playground of presidents, press barons and politics junkies, could be killed off by police zero tolerance on drink driving.
It started after midnight one evening last May, when police pulled over Debra Bolton, a 49-year-old single mother, who forgot to turn on her car headlights after a Georgetown soirée.
She admitted sipping a glass of wine with dinner, and even though her blood alcohol level was well below the legal limit, Bolton was handcuffed, searched and hauled off to the cells.
When The Washington Post splashed her five-month legal battle across its front page this month, it sent a shiver through the chattering classes.
”All I can say is, thank God none of the legendary Georgetown hostesses and grande dames is left in Washington to see this day,” sniffed Sally Quinn, legendary party host, wife of Post Watergate editor Ben Bradlee and DC’s premier social commentator.
”The city might just as well roll up the red carpet and shut its doors,” she wrote in the paper.
Since Bolton’s plight emerged, Washington authorities have battled a wave of damaging publicity, which has left some council members worried whispers of prohibition could spook prospective tourists and convention delegates.
The city council sprung into action on Tuesday, passing legislation voting to clarify drink-driving laws.
Drivers with blood alcohol levels of up to 0,05% will not be considered intoxicated. Between 0,06% and 0,8% is a neutral zone that could be used to prove a driver is drunk with other evidence. Anyone at 0,8% faces arrest.
”We sent a signal out there that DC is open for business. Police officers can’t just arrest someone if their breathalyser test has 0,01, 0,03 or 0,04,” said DC council member Carol Schwartz.
Bolton’s blood alcohol level was 0,03%, but she was held at the discretion of police who have the power to arrest anyone if they appear to be intoxicated, whatever the breathalyser says.
Washington’s mayor Anthony Williams immediately threatened to veto the Bill.
”Studies have consistently shown that even low blood-alcohol content [BAC] levels can impair driving,” he said.
Six people died in alcohol-related crashes in Washington last year in which the BAC was below 0,08%.
Cocktail parties at the White House, on Capitol Hill, in government departments, in big hotels and restaurants and in private homes attract an incestuous mix of elected officials, policy wonks and journalists.
”How do you think people get through these parties anyway? It’s not by drinking Diet Coke,” Quinn wrote.
Washington’s commuter paper The Examiner said the practice of zero tolerance makes zero sense.
”Why aren’t the cops sitting outside all those official White House parties and Capitol Hill receptions and nabbing the majority of departing guests?” the paper editorialised. ”That will never happen, because the Washington elite depends on alcohol to get through the day.”
President George Bush’s teetotal habits and early bedtime have watered down after-hours Washington, but the cocktail circuit lives on despite the death of the grande dame of DC socialising, Katharine Graham, the late publisher of The Washington Post, in 2001.
One of the hottest tickets these days is to a political fund-raiser at the Washington mansion of Hillary and Bill Clinton. — Sapa-AFP