Empty Chair at the WaPo Salon

They would have had not a chair, really, or even an empty place at Katharine Weymouth's health care reform "salon." Her dining table would have been crammed full, since there's no shortage of politicos willing to ante up the $25,000-per-lobbyist admission price for dinner. But for patients – the people most affected by health care reform – sorry.

It's a moot point now, since Weymouth has canceled the planned July 21 get-together at her house after an uproar about the opportunity for lobbyists to meet with the paper's health care reporters, as well as Obama Administration officials, for an off-the-record discussion of important issues. But even if the idea hadn't blown up in their faces, patients were never invited to the table.

Perhaps Weymouth was just being considerate. Maybe she assumed people living with chronic illness couldn't afford the $25,000 to attend, since practically every dime they have goes for co-pays, medication, insurance premiums and the rent.

Furthermore, patients might lack the right clothes. Sometimes they drag along cumbersome equipment like oxygen tanks. Not to mention unattractive teeth and thinning hair.

And patients do tend to go on about their diseases. At the salon, as the kick-off in what The Post hoped would become a tradition, the conversation must be light and breezy.

Take a cue from the invitation emailed – from Weymouth's personal email account – to Representative Jim Cooper, now posted on The Atlantic Web site. Washington Post Publisher Weymouth, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and health care reporter Ceci Connolly are hosting:


The evening will be absolutely delightful, dahling!

In her own defense, Weymouth says she didn't approve the flier that advertised the event, which she said in a note to readers in Sunday's Post did not "accurately reflect what we had in mind.'' So, she didn't understand the significance of the event and how it might violate the ethics code? A newspaper publisher who doesn't understand plain English. Or journalism ethics. Hmmm.

Maybe Weymouth would have garnered less scorn had she also invited, say, the widow of pancreatic cancer patient Randy Pausch. [Disclosure: I am a survivor of the often-fatal ovarian cancer.] Or someone with Lou Gehrig's disease. Or someone from I'm Too Young for This, an advocacy group for cancer patients aged 15 to 40, a demographic that has seen zero improvement in death rates for the last 30 years.

As it is, Weymouth might find herself in the same boneyard as politicians seized by an irresistible urge to spend more time with their families. May the gods have mercy on her. May she never be struck down by one of the devastating diseases that afflict The Uninvited.

But the gods do love irony, don't they?