Inside the Beltway

Filling ‘the Slot’

Legendary former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee is packing his bags for the South Pacific, albeit under far friendlier circumstances than his last deployment.

“I was reading a piece in Tin Can Sailors,” the 84-year-old Mr. Bradlee told Inside the Beltway yesterday, referring to the newspaper of the National Association of Destroyer Veterans. “And I saw this ad for a cruise that leaves Papua New Guinea and goes to Guadalcanal and up the so-called ‘Slot.’”

The newspaperman last navigated the 600-mile waterway during the height of World War II, traveling past various islands “none of which have a great place in history, but they have great meaning to me,” he says.

“I was an officer on a destroyer, exclusive to destroyers for 3 years,” Mr. Bradlee recalls. “I was commissioned when I was 20 years old, and I was 21 when in Guadalcanal.”

For this modern-day journey aboard a comfortable cruise ship, leaving port late next week, Mr. Bradlee will be accompanied by his youngest son, Quinn, 23, who will no doubt get a rare first-hand account of this country’s long and bloody battle against the Japanese.

Beyond that important history lesson, “I thought it would be fun,” says the editor, who will write about the trip for the New Yorker.

Reliving the 80s

We were wondering if Larry Sabato, the outspoken director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia (UVa.), would be on the Charlottesville campus this evening to hear Kate Griffin, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia and a UVa. graduate, deliver what promises to be a controversial speech, “Running on Empty: Why Campus Liberals and Hypocritical Democrats Can’t Win.”

“I wish I could attend, as Kate is one of my favorite former students,” Mr. Sabato told Inside the Beltway yesterday. “Many years ago, I taught Kate, and her husband-to-be, Phil Griffin, in my Campaigns and Elections seminar at UVa. It may be where they met.

“But I have a guest in my classes tomorrow, former New Hampshire [Democratic] Governor Jeanne Shaheen, and she has a presentation at precisely the time Kate is scheduled. I’m sending quite a few students to see Kate, however.”

Mrs. Griffin’s address at 6 p.m. is hosted by the conservative Network of enlightened Women (NeW), founded in the fall of 2004 as a UVa. book club with a mission of fostering the education and leadership skills of college women, as well as expanding the intellectual diversity on college campuses.

“Our event with Kate Griffin is a way for NeW to accomplish our goal of adding intellectual diversity to our school in the way Women’s History Month is celebrated,” network founder Karin Agness said yesterday.

Such diversity is spreading beyond the hills of Charlottesville.

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