I had a second-row seat to the campaign in 2004, and it was quite a show. In campaigns, Washington becomes like summer camp. Campaigns give everyone who works on them the sense that they are working on the most important thing in the world. You are either working on a campaign where the fate of the free world is in your hands, or you are covering a campaign where the fate of the free world is at stake. It can give a person a sense of license that they might not normally have--the sense that they deserve to have an affair because the fate of the world is at stake.

That high school atmosphere, the social milieu, if you will. The town is like a John Hughes movie--there are the popular kids, the unpopular ones, and the people trying to become popular.

I moved from New York to D.C. My husband got a job at the Washington Post, and I thought it would be good for the marriage to come with him. Also, I needed healthcare. I came for the husband and stayed for the gossip.

I think I should have my motto sewn onto a pillow, which is: "It's OK to ruin someone's day but not their life." You don't want to get anyone fired or arrested or break up a marriage. That's good moral advice, but in Washington, it's good practical advice. If you know something damning about someone else, they probably know something equally damning about you. No one in Washington can afford to go nuclear. It's a Cold War of gossip, which is why gossip columnists here tend to be less flavorful, shall we say, than gossip columnists in New York.

I should say that a real misconception about Wonkette is the idea that I wrote a lot of gossip, which I didn't. If you look at the contents of Wonkette, there is very little that is traditional gossip. What you find is commentary and satire and making fun of people. I can't help the fact that people think Wonkette is a gossip column, but there is very little original reporting involved. I take a piece of gossip or news from a news source and say things about it that everyone is thinking.

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