The Washington Monthly, 2019 - future of magazine reporters

Washington Monthly, March, 1994

From the editor-in-chief:

It's finally here--the 50th anniversary of The Washington Monthly! Who would have thought, when this little periodical began publication half a century ago, in a dingy loft on Connecticut Avenue, that today in 2019 the Monthly would not only be the sole remaining public policy magazine in the EuroAmerican Union but also a leading corporate sponsor of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Pretoria, South Nigeria.

I guess it just shows what vision can do. Charles Peters, our founding editor, had the vision to create the Monthly. He had the vision to see the magazine through its numerous lean decades. And he had the vision to be the first respectable magazine to offer the new CD-ROM virtual-reality "centerfolds" with Tru-Feel-lt (TM) interactive sensory-experience data-based sexual mannequins, fully adjustable for all 308 affectional preferences registered with the Federal Commission on Protected Lifestyle Choices. The rest, as Charlie recently told me by holocom from one of the many resort islands he now owns in the South Pacific, was publishing history.

As the Monthly's editor since Charlie retired, I am pleased to present this issue, which reviews some high points since the January 1994 25th anniversary.

* Susan Threadgill

WHERE ARE THEY

NOW?

Looking back on the fates of Monthly contributors from the 1994 anniversary issue masthead.

CHARLES PETERS: It's hard to believe this today, but Charlie once had trouble making ends meet! That was before the 2003 day when he completed simultaneous hostile takeovers of Berkshire Hathaway and the Quantum Fund, ousting the somewhat better known investors Warren Buffett and George Soros, both of whom later became Salvation Army officers. Charlie is now one of the world's richest men, having purchased MicroSoft, Boeing, Limbaugh's DoubleFried Steak franchise, the Hyatt Interactive Tru-Feel-lt (TM) No-Risk Simu-Tryst chain and other important properties. Charlie, though, remains a man of the people. For instance, every week he flies one of his private jets to Charleston, West Virginia, to report to the Veterans Administration hospital for free treatment of injuries suffered in his 2006 stun-phaser duel with Norman Podhoretz regarding the honor of a certain 1948 Columbia University coed whose exact name neither could remember.

How did Peters leap from penury to wealth? Alert readers may recall the small-type ownership statements that once ran in every October issue. These were the boxes that succinctly explained the Monthly to be a product of Washington Monthly Co., which was a subsidiary of Washington Monthly Partnership, which was a joint venture of Washington Monthly Subordinated Debentures Fund, which was a wholly owned division of Washington Monthly Realty Trust, which was an affiliate of Washington Monthly Bank of Credit and Commerce. In the old days Charlie said the purpose of this elaborate corporate shell was to protect investors from liability, to render Pepco unable to collect on the utility bill, and so on. Now every first-year business student knows that Peters was patiently using this elaborate ruse to take over Berkshire Hathaway, Quantum, and other corporate targets.

Peters realized a moment of national notoriety in 2012 when he attained his lifelong goal of being appointed head of the federal General Unaccountability Office (formerly General Accounting Office). Peters was later forced to resign from the position when during the course of a televised hearing into $28-apiece pure-titanium paper clips being used by record clerks at the Superconducting Supercollider, Peters became disoriented and, apparently thinking he was at lunch with a Monthly editor, motioned to the nearest young female congressional aide and declared, "Waitress, I'll have the usual--a double Amaretto martini with a frozen Heineken smoothie and a shot of Galliano on the side."

JAMES FALLOWS: Elected President in 2004 running on the independent Neocrat ticket, Fallows was swept into office on a wave of antiJapanese sentiment following the 2003 incident in which the Nakamoto Corporation purchased the entire state of Illinois and then leased it back to current residents.

Fallows thus became the first officially neoliberal politician to win national office. His administration was rocked with scandal nearly from the beginning, however, especially since just a few days after Fallows was sworn in, The Washington Monthly published a cover story headlined, WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CORRUPT, VENAL, BASE, INCOMPETENT, HORRIFIC FALLOWS ADMINISTRATION. Speaking to reporters, Peters noted that it had long been a Monthly tradition to write articles sharply critical of people the Monthly would be expected to like. "If I hadn't gone after Jim, Paul Warnke would have been furious," Peters explained. Admitting the article had been committed to type even before Fallows was sworn in, Peters added, "It's his own fault. He hadn't invited me to the White House for a state dinner yet."

Fallows attempted a program of neoliberal reforms, asking Congress for legislation that would limit physician incomes to $29 million per year; establish hourly first-class sleeper train service from Washington to Charleston, West Virginia, at an average public subsidy of $287,000 per passenger; make public schools and the draft mandatory for everyone except children of Fallows' friends and members of his administration; close the Superconducting Supercollider, restored by Congress in 1995 following its 1993 cancellation and expanded into a six-county combination science project and theme park employing 625,000 supervisory personnel.