WASHINGTON, DC–Another chapter was added to the infamous history of the U.S. News & World Report Mansion Saturday, when celebrity politico Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and longtime fixture at the journalism and pleasure palace, was forcibly removed from the premises after removing his pants and drunkenly plummeting from a second-story balcony into a pool.
“Hank is a longtime friend of the mansion, and the events of last weekend won’t change that,” said U.S. News & World Report editor-in-chief Mort Zuckerman, speaking to reporters in the mansion’s jungle-themed Southeast Asian Correspondent Room. “He just had a few too many Harvey Wallbangers, and we had to send him home. Nobody knows how to go off the deep end like the Kiss-Man.”
Sporting his trademark purple velvet smoking jacket and pipe, the smiling Zuckerman stressed that there were “no hard feelings” about the incident and joked that Kissinger was welcome back to his regular guest room at the mansion anytime, “as long as the old boy can keep it in his pants next time.”
The U.S. News & World Report Mansion has long been notorious for its wild parties. However, Saturday’s gathering exceeded even its usual standards for debauchery. Former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos was spotted poolside debating Social Security restructuring with leggy Fact-Checker Of The Month Caryn Alderson. Nearby, leather-clad Senate Republican Policy Committee chair Larry Craig (R-ID) stood atop the pool bar, challenging all comers to “try and beat me in arm-wrestling.” An all-nude romp in the mansion’s legendary Domestic Affairs Grotto included such journalistic luminaries as CBS anchor Dan Rather, Weekly Standard publisher William Kristol, and sultry, neoconservative MSNBC political analyst Laura Ingraham.
“It was like the fall of Rome,” said historian and presidential biographer David Halberstam, who attended the party on the arm of former Clinton press secretary DeeDee Myers. “At one point, while everybody was circling the solid gold Party Globe in the Grand Newsroom in a conga line, poor Kissinger wiped out on a huge pile of AP-wire printouts that had collected in the sunken-fireplace pit by the gold statue of [U.S. News & World Report founder] David Lawrence. We thought he’d broken his neck, but in a flash, he was back on his feet and calling for ’more wine, more wine’ in his unmistakable, German-accented, basso profundo voice. Then he shouted that he was ’more bombed than Cambodia in ’73.’”
A short time later, a group of U.S. News & World Report Copy Girls, renowned for keeping the magazine free of errors and for their trademark skimpy outfits, formed a kickline as former CIA director John Deutch treated the crowd to an improvisational blues jam honoring the evening’s guest of honor, former president George Bush. The jam was cut short when a pantsless Kissinger burst through the kickline in full stride, diving through a large balcony window into a pool two stories below.
Bush, who at one point disappeared for a half-hour into the mansion’s Velvet Typesetting Room with wife Barbara and CNN Crossfire co-host Mary Matalin, defended Kissinger’s behavior.
“Kissinger–disco king, no doubt, no doubt. Did he do anything the rest of us wouldn’t? I’d say not. Good man, the Kisser–knows how to get down,” Bush told reporters from his guest room at the mansion, where he is recuperating from a “heckuva hangover.” “Loves the wine? Sure, sure. Women? Song? No question there. But a good egg, and I’ll stand by him.”
Zuckerman defended his mansion and its parties, which have come under renewed fire in the wake of the latest incident.
“Some people may say that U.S. News & World Report’s commitment to incisive, cutting-edge news reportage, and all the fun that entails, is excessive or immoral,” the 72-year-old Zuckerman said. “In fact, Calvin Trillin wrote a very critical piece in last week’s Time about us–probably because he was mad he wasn’t invited–but such condemnations of the newsgathering lifestyle are both hypocritical and unenlightened. There’s no reason reporting the news can’t retain the fantasy element it had when we were in our teens and 20s. News should be informative, but also sexy and fun. That’s always been my magazine’s approach, and it’s the only way to get unbiased, comprehensive coverage while remaining young at heart.”
“Of course, a solid supply of Viagra and dating the Weinbaum triplets doesn’t hurt,” added Zuckerman, referring to Mindy, Cindy, and Windy Weinbaum, the three 22-year-old interns he has been dating since divorcing 1991 Copy Girl Of The Year Bobbi Brandt in April. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s an ’event’ that needs ’covering’ in the Business & Technology Bungalow.”
