Inside the Beltway

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If walls could talk

Rest assured — well, almost — Washington's Renaissance Mayflower Hotel has hosted its share of history long before, according to reports, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer spent the night of Feb. 13 in room 871 with a prostitute.

Indeed, it's just the latest scandal affiliated with the historic hotel on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest. It was in 1999 that the Mayflower provided free of charge its $5,000 Presidential Suite so that House impeachment managers could huddle privately with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, who had been involved with President Clinton.

Of course, the Mayflower has a proud history, too, since its opening in 1925. The inaugural ball of every president from Calvin Coolidge to Ronald Reagan was held at the Mayflower, where overnight guests have included Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Prince Takamatsu of Japan, Charles de Gaulle, Walt Disney, Carole Lombard and John Wayne.

Charles Lindbergh celebrated his historic flight there. Jean Harlow spent a morning working the hotel switchboard, and PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt wrote the famous line "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" in suite 776. Washington debutantes have traditionally been presented to society at the Mayflower. It contained more gold leaf than any building in the country, except the Library of Congress.

For the record, this writer spent his honeymoon at the Mayflower. Then again, the marriage didn't work out.

Mr. Smiley

Who on the job isn't talking about the escalating slugfest between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama?

Discussion around the water cooler this week centers on Mrs. Clinton's trying to work her way into the White House by demanding that the Democratic Party drop its own rules and allow primary votes in Florida and Michigan to count. Other cubicle conversations concur how wimpy Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is to kowtow to the New York senator's show of power.

So what's wrong with displays of political affiliation in the workplace?