The Mooch: In A League of His Own Among Washington’s One-Week Wonders!
Richard Levick, Chairman and CEO, LEVICKAh, Mooch. Moochie. The Mooch-ster.Bubelah – we hardly knew ye.Or should we say, in tribute, we hardly knew ye, ye %$#@* reprobate! (Seriously, a mouth that filthy got into Harvard Law? Who reviewed his application? Howard Stern?!)Mooch, you were an all-too-brief comet that streaked across the dull skies of our nation’s capital, leaving behind a trail of anatomically improbable (especially for Steve Bannon) slurs, ugly innuendo, appalling ignorance regarding the rudiments of journalism, and head-scratching questions about how-in-hell Ivanka and Jared ever thought you’d made a decent White House communications director!But, Mooch, one thing is certain: with your euphonic nickname and your success at skewering colleagues who devoted their careers to the party that nominated and elected the president you served so, umm, loudly for a week, you’ll never be forgotten! Twenty years from now, we’ll still be toasting your memory and savoring your greatest hits. (“Remember,” we’ll reminisce, “he called the White House chief of staff and former head of the Republican National Committee an ‘expletive-deleted paranoid schizophrenic and a paranoiac’?! All of it on the record because he apparently didn’t understand ‘off the record’?! What a guy! Here’s to ‘The Mooch!’”)All of which puts Mooch in an exalted spot amid the pantheon of Washington’s One-Week-Wonders. Through the decades, the nation’s capital has seen untold numbers of White House officials, prospective cabinet secretaries, and judicial nominees fired or withdrawn after a mere few days. Sometimes the reason has been nefarious, such as financial deceit or lying about their resume. Sometimes the reason has been more prosaic, like having second thoughts about public service or genuinely wanting to go back home to the ranch or farm.See if you can match these Washington One-Week-Wonders (alright, the nomination or tenure of some of these folks may have stretched into a second week, but you get the idea) to the issue that got them cashiered, as it were. No fair googling – at least not for the first few minutes! 
If you went eight-for-eight, consider yourself a Washington geek! Now you know why your high school classmates walk away from you at reunions!And isn’t it quaint that in the not-too distant past a Supreme Court nominee was scrubbed because he admitted to smoking pot? Oops! Gave one away!At your next reunion, your old pals may ask if you were ever at a D.C. function with “The Mooch.”“Nah, he wasn’t in town long enough,” you can say. “I never met the %$#@*!” [author]About the Author: Richard Levick, Esq., @richardlevick, is Chairman and CEO of LEVICK, a global communications and public affairs agency specializing in risk, crisis, and reputation management. He is a frequent television, radio, online, and print commentator. [/author]
