The ‘W’ stands for weddings

President Bush feels very strongly about certain things: the Iraq war, his tax cuts and wedding planning.

Yes, as reported in “The Mr. & Mrs. Happy Handbook,” a new book out tomorrow by Fox News Channel’s Steve Doocy, it turns out that the commander-in-chief has firm beliefs on exactly how a wedding ought to be conducted. Not surprisingly, Bush thinks that weddings, like life, should be quick, efficient and pomp-less.

When Bush’s former White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace announced in January 2005 that she was getting married, the president encouraged her to follow his “Easy Map to Matrimony.”

Doocy lays out Bush’s guidelines:

» “Have the wedding on a Tuesday, so it could be a low-key affair.” Or does the president just think Tuesdays are cheaper?

» “Weddings during the day are less likely to feature dancing.” The president is anti-dancing.

» “Keep the mothers out of it; minimize their involvement because they can take over.”

» “Make it snappy. Don’t have a prolonged engagement.”

Aw … what a romantic. Bush told Wallace, “When you know someone is THE ONE, you just have to move on with it.” Bush also wasn’t a fan of Wallace’s decision to get married in Greece and “he wanted her to tear up her game plan.” Bush asked Wallace, “Do you really want to marry this guy? If you do, you should do it now and do it [in the United States].”

But Bush had more than advice for Wallace — he even offered to help out. He offered her the use of the White House’s medical staff for the required blood tests. “But she declined,” Doocy writes, “although she could have been the only subscriber to Modern Bride magazine who’d had her pre-wedding tests done by the surgeon general.”

In the end, Wallace opted to ignore virtually all of Bush’s advice and, in September 2005, had a non-Tuesday, Greek wedding full of motherly involvement and dancing.

Talk about insubordination.

Weekly Standard exec turns to crime

Nicholas Swezey, the longtime advertising manager of the Weekly Standard, has just added “book publisher” to his resume.

Swezey, along with his college buddy, energy trader Cortright McMeel, and journalist Michael Langnas, have just published the first book under their new imprint, Mug Shot Press.

“It’s going to be pushing the envelope on what you’re reading, but keeping the literary merits,” Swezey said.

Indeed, their first offering, “Murdaland: Crime Fiction for the 21st Century,” is a collection of short stories and novel excerpts, offering, according to the back cover, “an array of ugly insights you never asked for.”

The title is taken from a piece of graffiti that writer McMeel passes every day on his way to the trading desk in Baltimore: “Bodymore, Murdaland.”

The debut includes fiction by National Book Award Finalist Mary Gaitskill and novelist Richard Bausch.

“It’s a literary magazine in book form,” Swezey said. Mug Shot plans to issue new anthologies twice per year. Next year, they hope to publish two novels.

Putting out the Ritz

All the pomp and ceremony of Friday night’s YouthAIDS gala took place in the ballroom at The Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner, but the real action took place much later in a suite high above.

Following the $1,000-per-plate event, such celebrities as Latin Grammy winner

Jorge Moreno, fashion stylist Philip Bloch, YouthAIDS Founder/Director Kate Roberts and Sir Richard Branson joined the mingling masses in the hotel bar.

But at midnight, the truly lucky moved the party to Moreno's suite, where Moreno and his band jammed the night away before roughly 50 loud, singing and screaming admirers.

“It was like they were at an outside park!” said one observer.

But it wasn’t long before security banged on their door — twice — and asked them to keep it down. At 1:30 a.m., Roberts pleaded with security, reminding them of all the money they had raised that night and all the good they’re doing around the world.

“We’re saving lives!” Roberts declared.

Security caved, but made the party move back to the bar, which the Ritz begrudgingly re-opened for the group.

The party (and the singing and screaming and dancing ...) kept on rocking well into the morning, and, when it became clear that the party might not stop, the hotel’s manager had to make one small demand of the crowd: They’d have to leave the bar by 4:30 a.m. so that the hotel could begin setting up for Saturday brunch.

Will someone run for jailhouse ANC commissioner?

In an American city whose citizens aren’t fully represented in federal government, it seems only fitting that there’s an ANC post set up that’s almost impossible to fill.

The commissioner’s post for ANC 6B-11, the district representing the D.C. jail — and only the jail — will be vacant come January. In fact, the seat has been empty since its creation decades ago.

ANC commissioners are the first rung of elected officialdom in D.C. politics. Though the slots are held on a volunteer basis, the commissioners take an active role in neighborhood issues, from zoning to liquor licenses to crime.

In a idiosyncrasy of local law, the roughly 2,000 inmates of the jail are considered residents and are therefore entitled to ANC representation. District law, however, doesn’t allow convicted, incarcerated felons to vote.

That there is a district strictly for the detained “is one of those interesting little quirks,” said Gottlieb Simon, executive director of the Office of ANCs. So there’s a commission but no commissioner, what Simon called a “structural vacancy.”

Herein lies the rub: Prisoners waiting for trial or convicted misdemeanants for that matter, are allowed to vote, so there is room for a candidate if one steps forward.

Every ANC seat in Washington is in contention on Nov. 7, though roughly 15 percent of all districts have no candidate on the ballot.

Speakeasy

"The world doesn’t like us anymore.”

— Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals owner, emphasizing the need for Americans to be charitable Friday night at the YouthAIDS gala

By the numbers

$65,000: Amount of the winning bid at Friday’s YouthAIDS gala auction to jump to the top of the two-year waiting list to purchase a new Bentley Continental GTC convertible — for another $190,000.