I arrived here yesterday morning on the red-eye, checked in, and slept for several hours before meeting up with John Hawkins of Right Wing News, Bettina Inclan from the House Republicans Policy Committee, and Sean Hackbarth of The American Mind.

We went out for a lovely Ash Wednesday meal at a local sushi place (fish for the normal people who eat seafood; vegetable tempura and edamame for me).

Bettina is working with some of the House people on how to reach out better to New Media (that is to say, bloggers, podcasters, vid-bloggers, etc.). It's nice to hear that the subject is being taken seriously, although neither of our best ideas seem like they're going to fly with Bettina's Legislative Overlords.

Best Idea #1 (John Hawkins): Post lots of pictures of women in lingerie. (Modified by Joy: balance this out every now and then with beefcake. Preferably pictures of firefighters wearing red suspenders, and members of the U.S.M.C. in tank tops.)

Best Idea #2 (Joy McCann): Ditch the boring blog, and start a whole new one called "CongressCritters." Because that's what the rest of us call 'em anyway, behind their backs.

"Won't happen," she told us. "They want to be hip, but not . . . not that hip."

What a shame, I remark. "And here I thought I could bring our legislators over to the Dark Side of online prurience."

UPDATE: Hawkins tells me the sake is interfering with my memory, and the "post beefcake and cheesecake" joke was all my very own.

Beyond the jokes, however, we did have some concrete suggestions for Bettina. I sent her an extensive email the next day that had what I thought were sound suggestions. Anyone who would like to enhance cogressional outreach to New Media should feel free to send them to me, and I'll see that they are forwarded.

Sorry, John!

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:07 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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