Each week, Yeas & Nays joins Carol Joynt, the host of the Q&A Cafe at Nathans of Georgetown, at various power breakfast spots around the city to see which players are getting their day started with deal-making, networking and glad-handing.
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The poor Four Seasons had a hard time putting bodies in the seats during this recess week,so we actually had to go twice just to get our weekly dose of Power Breakfasters. So slow was it that one of the restaurant’s power tables (labeled “Conservative Corner” by this column) featured nothing more than a casual family with kids on both mornings.
On Monday, the main man was Colonial Parking executive Rusty Lindner, but you could still find the partner boys from Core Capital doing their best to look like they just walked out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Adding an intellectual touch to this moneyed room was Sheila Burke, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Tuesday was a more promising morning, and the hotel’s own PR director — Liliana Baldassari — even grabbed a bite to eat there, perhaps to keep an eye on things. Former national security adviser Sandy Berger and an aide emerged from the restaurant’s private backroom and Berger grabbed a newspaper on the way out. Amazingly, he didn’t stuff the paper down his pants or socks.
National Journal’s Linda Douglass and Suzanne Clarke dined together and we also spotted Hogan & Hartson senior international affairs adviser H.P. Goldfield. Finally, Tuesday saw Washington cave dweller Wiley T. Buchanan III (“Bucky”). Buchanan’s father served as ambassador to Austria and Luxembourg and chief of protocol during the Eisenhower administration and his mother is the heir to Dow Chemical.
