The Award for Thirstiest Member of Congress
Goes to …

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach a president of his own party immediately after he was sworn into office in January of 2021, happily discussed how courageous it was in a series of glowing pieces with glam portraits and swashbuckling quotes (“To hell with it,” he told one Washington news magazine), lost his primary last year to a MAGA opponent and now is considering a Senate run but won’t rule out voting for the president he voted to impeach.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who lambasted the mainstream media, surrounded herself in the Capitol with a phalanx of aides to avoid questions and did the usual “fake news” attacks before making clear with her cooperation with and promotion of a “60 Minutes” profile what was apparent from the start: that she was like the little boy in school who hit the girl he liked only because he wanted her attention. Double points here because Greene, in a seemingly unintentional homage to the award’s namesake, twice misspelled “60 Minutes” interviewer Lesley Stahl’s first name in a tweet promoting the segment.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who never fails to show up for D.C. parties that are mostly reporters talking to other reporters, for the Sunday shows, which are a harder sell for other lawmakers not named Manchin, and for banquets that most everybody in the capital dreads going to for the seventh time (who really wants to go the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner again?). In an era when most lawmakers, and certainly most senators, would never dream of attending a reception filled with staffers, reporters and hangers-on, Klobuchar stands alone. Former aides have told us they’ve told her she'll be the only senator there, but that won't stop her from earning a SPOTTED in Playbook. And this is to say nothing of her talent, immense by even senatorial standards, for shifting every conversation back to her and her pet bill of the moment, like when Jake Tapper asked her about Sen. Joe Manchin’s role in Build Back Better negotiations last February. “Those negotiations are continuing,” she said, before pivoting sharply: “as they are on voting rights. … He is behind the bill that I’m leading, the Freedom to Vote Act.” (Yes, Klobuchar is both namesake and recipient of the award, because she's singular.)

Sen. Chris Coons, who has been in the Senate since 2010, but, with a fellow Delawarean in the White House, is jumping on his big chance to maybe snag the role he’s always wanted. Coons, a Foreign Relations Committee member, has made it no secret he’s pining to be America’s chief diplomat, telling some colleagues that the post could be his if there’s a second Biden term. Until then, though, he’s content to get as much juice as he can out of his role as “shadow secretary of state,” in which he’s dispatched to foreign hot spots and put on glad-handing duty with dignitaries, all the while never missing an opportunity to tell a reporter about his close bond with Biden as a result of their shared understanding of “The Delaware Way.” Are you listening, Joe?

Newt Gingrich, who was elected to Congress, on his oh-so-thirsty third try, in 1978 to represent Georgia’s 6th congressional district and later became speaker. He was run out of Congress after the 1998 election. But here we are in 2023, and Newton Leroy Gingrich, nearing 80, is still on Fox (he did satellite hits from Rome when his wife was ambassador to the Vatican!), cranking out his own podcast, annually adding to his ever-growing stack of books and writing a column that still makes news, like when he warned that Republicans were underestimating Biden. He’s still in the game, dusting off Constitution 101 mini-lectures — he’s a historian, as he likes to remind us — for prime time cable hits, at a time many of his classmates have not been heard from since the Iran-Contra era. Going forward, we might have to name this one the Newt Award.