For its White House Correspondents’ Dinner party, BuzzFeed brought its entire politics team to D.C., but one of its members was noticeably absent from the party.

Andrew Kaczynski, the prolific tweeter and Internet video resurfacer, skipped out. He was at the actual Dinner, the one BuzzFeed had failed to secure a table at. CSPAN brought him as a guest.

“It must be nice, right,” BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith told FishbowlDC that night. “He’s like our celebrity.”

Even without their own version of a celebrity in attendance, the party was packed with hundreds of people, causing long waits at the bar, but even worse: Long lines outside to even get in. Senior Press Director Ashley McCollum manned the mess outside. At one point the general guest line stretched almost 100 people-deep.

For Dorsey Shaw, BuzzFeed‘s resident TV news watcher, it was his first time down from New York since the publication celebrated the launch of it’s Washington bureau in early August last year. He told us he was disappointed that he wouldn’t have time to see the monuments and other sights but that he’d make sure to schedule them in next time he’s in town. (He ended up being able to schedule in some time to see them Sunday, we hear.)

What and who else did we see? continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today we pair up Jansing and her anime doppelganger Sailor Moon:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Lydia Callis

But she has some competition in Politico‘s David Catanese.

Last night on Current TV’s Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer, Catanese was on as a guest to talk about the politics of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie praising President Obama‘s leadership Tuesday. While talking, Catanese moved his hands around like a mime with Turrets syndrome.

He waved to the left. He placed invisible objects to the right. He pushed up on his chest as if to check for lumps. It’s a sight to be seen…

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“I clearly lost the month of August, what Senate candidates join me in that column?” Catanese said Wednesday, his first tweet in more than a week as we reported that day, indicating that the reporter had used his time away to reflect on what happened. Reflection appeared to tame his tweets. The next day he was sending out poll numbers on Akin’s race. “[Sen. Claire] McCaskill 45%, Akin 44% GOP establishment: teeth-gnashing…” he wrote. Catanese sent out two more tweets that day on the status of Akin’s race.

Earlier today Republican strategist Karl Rove was quoted by Bloomberg Businessweek as saying, “If [Akin is] found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts!” Catanese tweeted the quote and two more quotes with Akin’s spokesperson responding to it.

Catanese has also filed two stories for Politico referencing Akin’s Senate race (here and here).

Catanese did not respond to a request for comment. A remark from Catanese, however, turned up in a local Missouri newspaper last week. “I would never intentionally impugn a woman who has been the victim of the horrific crime of rape,” Catanese said in the statement. “My commentary on Rep. Akin’s repugnant rhetoric failed to make this clear.”

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Charlie Mahtesian

“[Mahtesian's] remarkable intellect and inexhaustible work ethic will undoubtedly complement the blog’s success and acumen.” wrote Editor-in-Chief John Harris in a press release today.

Harris’ wording last week in an internal memo was no less inflating: “In a rational world, it seems obvious, the person on our staff who has more and better ideas about politics than anyone in the business would have a platform to share those ideas with readers in real time.”

Then there was Mahtesian’s own above-the-rest-of-the-chattering-class description for his blog in his first post. He said the blog plans on “avoiding pundit-like chin-stroking, distilling conventional wisdom or writing eye-glazing items about soccer moms or NASCAR dads.” It’s about “perspective” and “insight,” you see. Not “chin-stroking” and “eye-glazing.”

The bar has been set high. Not by David Catanese, who has been swapped out for God Mahtesian, but by the mythical version of Mahtesian himself who we’ve been reading about.

That said, we love the blog’s caricature.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Was it a hit or miss? Tell us in our poll below. We’ll run the verdict in Monday’s Morning Chatter:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

POLITICO

• David Catanese and Alex Isenstadt led the site Friday morning with a story about how the Penn State “scandal”* has not only consumed Pennsylvania Politics, but is some kind of monster with a million tentacles that could eat the whole world, or something. Seriously, no one’s safe: not White House spokesman Jay Carney, not presidential-candidate (and a former Pa. Senator) Rick Santorum… not Justin Bieber, we’re sure.

• CLICK decided to stay above this whole hornets nest. They brought us, in the words of Politico Editor-in-Chief John Harris, a “nugget” in which we learn that Ed Rendell, the former Pa. governor, likes his Santa Clauses rotund—not scrawny—and in clean suits—not dirty ones—, thank you. Who needs a sordid sex scandal* when you can revive a six, seven-year-old story to grab all that SEO traffic? This one, at least, was squarely sourced to WYNC’s Freakonomics Radio.

THE HILL

• Daniel Strauss tried, valiantly, to make the story relevant with an item saying that Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey (D) and Pat Toomey (R) withdrew their support for a Congressional Medal of Freedom for fired-coach Joe Paterno. What that means is a mystery because the pub never found out more about it. (Politico was more helpful, noting Rep. Glenn Thompson — the one who actually nominated Paterno — won’t say if he plans to withdraw the actual nomination). On the plus side, Strauss didn’t use the term “sex scandal”* once.

SALON.COM

• Writing at the The War Room blog, former Roll Call writer and now Salon.com News Editor Steve Kornacki told us helpfully that Paterno and Sandusky are both Republicans. We get his point. He was trying, we think, to say how linking a person’s bad behavior with their political affiliation is pretty stupid (he compares it to Rush Limbaugh pointing out that the Times Square bomber was a Dem) but the message was lost and Kornacki had to update the post—twice—and spell it out, saying “any suggestion that Republican politics had anything to do with the awful case at Penn State” is absurd. Glad we got that cleared up.

*No matter the details, sex and powerful people always adds up to sex scandal D.C.  press, no matter that we’re talking about the sexual abuse of children, and not a cheating Congressman.

– JUSTIN MCLACHLAN

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The card reads:  “David, We’re using the refrigerator magnets to display our many local news stories. Enjoy the balloons… Crider, Robby, Jesse, and the DCCC team.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.