R. W. Apple

Reporter for the New York Times.

Invited to fancy dinner with President Clinton on June 3, 1993, and paid for it by writing a front page story about how Clinton had to make the "brutal, heartbreaking" decision to abandon Lani Guinier, only arriving to dinner when many guests were already "halfway through their beef Wellington and some ... on their second glass of Jordan cabernet sauvignon."

When not sipping wine with the president, the Times's R.W. Apple consorts with such friends as the quintessential lawyer-lobbyists Robert Strauss and Lloyd Cutler. He once told The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz frankly enough that he's an "establishment" type of guy, and that "if Lawrence Eagleburger and Zbigniew Brzezinski and one or two others were to say to me, 'that's a lot of crap', I would tend to be hesitant to put it forward." (Washington Babylon, 24)