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By Holly Bailey
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In terms of social life, Bush's Washington is an oxymoron. The 43rd president has never embraced, nor particularly liked, official Washington--the lawyers and lobbyists and journalists who make up Washington's more or less permanent establishment. Bush, who prefers to go to bed at 9:30 p.m., has entertained at only a few state dinners; his socializing tends to be rare and low-key, mostly with old Yale and Texas buddies. And most of the Texans who came to Washington say they want to return home when their time is done. The one cabinet officer who made the social circuit with some regularity, Secretary of State Colin Powell, was not asked to stay on for the second term.
In subtle but interesting ways, however, the mostly Red State Bush crowd has infiltrated the social fabric of the mostly Blue State capital. During nonworking hours, their presence can be felt in a pair of local institutions with very different purposes but a certain cultural affinity: the hottest bar in Georgetown, Smith Point, and one of the region's most popular houses of worship, the evangelical Falls Church, a 271-year-old Episcopal parish in the northern Virginia suburbs. The president's daughters, along with a cadre of young and hungry staffers, are regulars at the bar, and a notable group of administration officials, including the president's chief speechwriter and his top lawyer, worship at the church. Together, the bar and the church provide a haven and networking opportunities for what may become a future Washington establishment. Bush, who knows something about sin and redemption, would feel right at home in either place. A pair of NEWSWEEK correspondents visited the bar and the church over two weekends in early January. Their report:
THE BAR. Outside Smith Point, the line starts forming an hour or so before midnight. Preppy boys in polo shirts with upturned collars and preppy girls showing their pearls and cleavage want to see if "the girls," as the Bush twins are known, have shown up. Many nights they are not disappointed. In the spring of 2004, after graduating from Yale and the University of Texas, Barbara and Jenna moved to Washington to help their father's re-election campaign. They began going to Smith Point to unwind with friends after work.
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The bar itself is a bit of a dive, a hangout for private-school Peter Pans who wish to relive those wild nights at the frat house. It succeeds in part by an old barkeeper's trick: keeping the wanna-bes lined up out on the street even when the place is mostly empty. The real regulars, who are on "The List," usually arrive late, sometimes after "pre-gaming" (downing a few shots at home). On this particular Saturday night, Barbara appears first, surrounded by burly boys, sipping a Bud Light as she heads for the bar. She is wearing a designer coat and her jeans are tucked into big, Jessica Simpson-style boots. Jenna arrives later, wearing a gold top with skinny straps, her head on the shoulder of her boyfriend. The dance floor after midnight is pretty raunchy, with couples grinding away, but the Bush girls steer clear. "The girls are probably more tame than a lot of people," says one Smith Point regular who worked in the Bush White House.
Smith Point has become a clubhouse for low-level administration staffers, who tend to have wealthy fathers and know each other. Still, the scene is slightly awkward. When they started coming, the Bush girls fit in easily with the Southern fraternity boys and the Texas Rich children of Bush-Cheney officials and contributors. "Now," says a regular, "it's the two girls on one side and a whole lot of people on the other side and then some people in the middle who are trying to act like they don't care at all that Jenna and Barbara Bush are in a room with them." The average age is twentysomething. An older crowd showed up after the election, when the top echelon of the Bush campaign stopped by. The waitresses wore BUSH-CHENEY '04 hats.
THE CHURCH. The old Washington establishment was fairly secular. Now and again, the powerful might take in a sermon on Christian humility, but wearing it on your sleeve was frowned upon. The Bush crowd is much more open and eager about its churchgoing. The Falls Church is an interesting hybrid. It is old and established, but worship there is not subdued. Hymns are not pounded out on an organ but rather rocked out by an amplified electric "praise band." The faithful, many of them dressed down in jeans and T shirts, sing along with gusto, dance in the aisles and raise their hands to the sky.
"It was during the campaign when I first really came to realize how many Republicans attended the church," says GOP pollster Ed Goeas, who worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign and attends the 6 a.m. prayer meetings. "When I would show up in the morning, the other men would ask me about the latest tracking numbers."
Worshipers include Bush's former White House counsel and Attorney General- designate Alberto Gonzales, and CIA Director Porter Goss and his top staff. Conservative press luminaries include former CNN "Crossfire" host Tucker Carlson and Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard and Fox News. Michael Gerson, the president's speechwriter, is close to the rector, the Rev. John Yates. "I pray often for Michael and his staff," says Yates, "because they have the president's ear."
It can be a little hard to separate church from state at Sunday services. In a sermon, Yates once analogized the relationship between Christ and the apostles to that between Bush and Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Even so, the rector tries not to appear too partisan. He has visited the White House under both Democrats and Republicans. "We love both the Clintons and the Bushes," he says.
He quickly adds, however, that he is "more in sympathy with the policies of President Bush." Yates has taken a strong stand against the consecration of an openly gay bishop by the Episcopal Church. "Every week, it was 'This is sin!' " says a 30-year-old parishioner. "I actually pulled them aside and said, 'Hey, this is important, but aren't there other things we can talk about?' "
Yates does not want to appear too dogmatic. There is a place for questioning in his church, he says. Does this make him off-message in the always on-message Bush world? Not at all, says Yates, who says his faith and the president's are very similar indeed. A shepherd always wants to add sheep to the flock. Yates says: "I think President Bush would enjoy the worship of our church and our people."
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