New series: Capitol Hill meets Grey’s Anatomy 

There’s a new series in the works about a freshman senator, a lobbyist and a staffer. It’s a scripted drama for CBS, to be written by the Los Angeles-based team of Matt Corman and Chris Ord. The pilot they have been contracted to write is due in December.

You might be thinking, who are these nobodies? But it turns out they are famous — well, sort of. Their movie “Deck the Halls,” from Twentieth Century Fox, hits theaters in late November. The film stars Kristin Davis, Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito.

Last week the two thirtysomething men came to town for their first fact-finding mission to Washington for the script. In an effort to hang out with some movers and shakers, they dined at Café Milano with lobbyist Tommy Boggs. They also met with junior staffers for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) as well as aides at the Democratic National Committee.

Ord said the show wouldn’t be overly political. “You want some political drama, but you want relationships drama,” he said, mentioning ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” as the type of drama they were seeking to create.

Corman, sounding very unWashington, remarked, “Our intent is for this to be humanistic. We’re not out to skewer people.” In essence, he said, the idea is for viewers to care about the characters.

Whether the script will be accepted is anyone’s guess. “They could love it and we’ll be off to the races, or, it could be dead,” said Ord.

Hopefully, the show will be better than HBO’s “K Street” and NBC’s “Mister Sterling,” two political shows that crashed soon after takeoff.

 Patton Boggs book party turns into Comedy Central

Stuffy political types are dying to find their inner Jon Stewart. And last week Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann attempted to do just that at a party for their new book, “The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track” at the lobbying firm of Patton Boggs.

As a dignified well-dressed work crowd sipped on wine, Mann and Ornstein took to the microphone to give speeches that included fake-news stand-up routines and more serious thoughts on the appalling state of Congress.

“Most of you grew up memorizing the nine planets,” Ornstein began. “Unfortunately Pluto has been knocked off the list. But Pluto today announced that it would run as an Independent.”

Ornstein explained, “I wanted to get you laughing because there’s not much to laugh about these days.”

He went on to say, “It’s not just a culture of corruption. It’s something deeper than that. We not only want you to buy this book, we want you to read this book and help us clean up this awful mess.”

Mann approached the podium, and said, “You see what I’m up against. Norman was once the pollster for Comedy Central.”

After telling the audience that Ornstein has had a tremendous impact on him — with his striped black and white socks, plaid shirt and polka dot tie — more gravely, Mann remarked, “It’s not too harsh to say we think the institution of Congress has been trashed. Interests have been cast aside for party ideology.”

Well-known faces in the crowd included former Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater (both Breaux and Slater are now Patton Boggs lobbyists), NPR’s Linda Wertheimer, and CNN’s Ed Henry.

Roger Ailes may be no Tommy Hilfiger and Brit Hume may be no Carson Kressley (“Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”) in the world of fashion, but both made bold remarks last week at a Fox News luncheon held at Charlie Palmer Steak on Capitol Hill.  

Ailes, Fox News’s Chairman and CEO, started it by commenting on North Korean president Kim Jong Il’s pants. “You think he could get a pair of pants that fit,” he told Hume in a campy interview setting that put them in big armchairs on a dais at the restaurant. “He can’t come in there looking like that.”

(The Korean President has been seen in floodwaters that are too tight.) When further pressed about the president’s trousers, he added, “I don’t want some Korean agent chasing me, but I just find it odd that those pants are kind of short,” Ailes said.

Jong Il, reportedly working on another nuclear weapon test, could not be reached for comment.

Hume, managing editor of Fox’s Washington Bureau, addressed the flag controversy brought on by media mogul Ted Turner, who believes that wearing outward symbols is inappropriate. “The flag pin is not a symbol of the Republican Party or the Bush administration,” said the conservative Hume, who wears the flag pin on his lapel. “We’re American, and we’re actually kind of proud of it.”

At a recent appearance at the National Press Club, Turner said, “We cannot signal how we feel about a cause, even a justified cause, through some sort of outward symbol.”

Ailes said of Turner, “He lost his network and then his mind.”

A Turner spokesperson did not return a phone call seeking comment on the Ailes salvo.

Ever humble about his limited fashion sense, Ailes admitted that his wife does all his shopping and that his wardrobe comes from “off the rack.”  He was also open about his physique, saying, “I think I’m going to start up an organization for overweight bald men.”

Regardless, perhaps Bravo’s “Project Runway” will consider bringing Ailes and Hume on board as judges?

Neither of Hawaii’s Democratic congressmen were at home for the big quake that hit the Big Island over the weekend.

Rep. Neil Abercrombie was on an airplane flying home to Honolulu at the time.

Retiring Rep. Ed Case, meanwhile, is traveling in Southeast Asia. Case’s home is in Oahu. “Of course he’s been in contact with us and concerned with what’s happening,” said Anne Stewart, Case’s legislative director. “It looks like it’s not that big of a disaster.”

Hawaii Sens. Daniel Inouye (D) and Daniel Akaka (D) toured the Big Island together on Monday.  Akaka was at home in Honolulu at the time of the quake.

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