Out & About: At Palm Gala, Vanity Meets Revelry

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D.C MAYOR ADRIAN FENTY has finally made it in this town. Last night at The Palm's grand reopening party, cameras zoomed in on the all-grins mayor as he climbed to the far end of a "power booth" to sign his caricature, which has joined the hundreds of other boldface names, current or has-been, that grace the walls of the famed Dupont Circle steak house and place to be seen.

This summer, the restaurant closed for some renovations, which included the addition of a glass-enclosed extension of the dining room onto the 19th Street NW sidewalk. The new space, which gives you a nice look out onto the constantly traffic-clogged street, is the ultimate power fishbowl for sidewalk gawkers, but the true Palm, which has been at the corner of 19th Street NW and Jefferson Place for the past 35 years, is tucked farther inside where the D.C.'s gallery of vanity is on full display.

After the mayor signed his portrait, which sits adjacent to one of ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, he joined the party, which was packed. Fenty was stationed at a critical crowd logjam, where he chatted up a storm with well-wishers.

Other famous-for-Washington types were there, including many folks who are honored on the walls, including Bob Schieffer of CBS, pictured at left, and CNN's Ed Henry, who is this writer's former editor at Roll Call. Tammy Haddad, MSNBC's vice president for Washington, was buzzing about, which is normal for these types of events.

We did not see, sadly, former Examiner gossip columnist Karen Feld, who is memorialized on the south wall with two of her trademark dogs, Cappuccino and Champagne. Across the dining room, at a point where restaurant staff had set up an oyster table and later a busing station, sat panel images of President Bush, the first lady, Vice President Cheney and Lynne Cheney. The Cheney portraits are signed; the president and first lady's are not signed. And it is unclear if they will remain unsigned through the end of the current administration. As the party buzzed around the first and second families, their images seemed a bit lonely, especially as plates and glasses piled up in front of them.

As the party began to die after 9 p.m., Chris and Kathleen Matthews rolled on in and the media power couple looked visibly out of place standing in an area that had cleared out. But then again, Chris Matthews of MSNBC, fresh off the 10th anniversary of "Hardball," has had a week of ups and downs.

Just as this writer was getting ready to leave, James Carville and wife Mary Matalin rushed on by toward the exit. Matalin brushed up against our leg while leaving; she impressively downed her drink and slammed it on the partition we were leaning against as if she had just wrapped up a tequila shot consumption contest at a College Park frat house. Huzzah!

So all in all, it was successful evening of D.C. gawking. And certainly, that trend is never going away at The Palm.

» The Palm, 1225 19th St. NW; 202-293-9091 (Dupont Circle)

File photo of Fenty by Rich Lipski/The Washington Post; Schieffer courtesy CBS News; Matthews, Matalin and Carville by NBC News