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"  Maureen Dowd:  The BS detector  There are very few New York Times scribes (okay, none) who can pull off four-inch-high, candy-red stilettos, on or off a bar stool. But we love Maureen even more for her moxie in print, her seemingly endless supply of barbed wit, and her uncanny ability to capture the powerful and/or notorious in words that end up defining them\u2014for better or worse (usually worse)\u2014not to mention defining the zeitgeist. She nails it through election cycles, world crises, and delicious tawdry dramas. From her Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning rants on Monica Lewinsky (oh, for the good ol&amp;#039; days) to her descriptions of Bill Clinton (our &amp;quot;Animal House President&amp;quot;), George W. Bush (&amp;quot;the boy emperor&amp;quot;), and now the Obamas (&amp;quot;Spock&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;the princess of South Chicago&amp;quot;), Maureen is spot-on. Whether you love her or hate her, you read her.  The key to her fabulous style: &amp;quot;She believes in the whole Marilyn Monroe thing\u2014either you&amp;#039;re super-casual or super-dressed up,&amp;quot; says her assistant of five years Ashley Parker (now a full-time reporter for the Times). She has a quirky-glam look culled from the racks of her favorite vintage designer clothing stores. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;d be covering a story in LA or San Francisco, but have a down hour and she&amp;#039;ll know of the cool vintage spot,&amp;quot; Parker says. Where she&amp;#039;ll be able to zero in on the perfect 40s Chanel piece. &amp;quot;But to be honest,&amp;quot; says Parker, &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;ll leave these vintage stores with all these clothes, but very few of them are actually for her. She&amp;#039;s always buying great clothes as presents for all of her friends.&amp;quot; Including Parker: &amp;quot;On the rare occasions I&amp;#039;m wearing something great, it&amp;#039;s because Maureen has given it to me.&amp;quot; What she buys for boys: She is known for hand-picking hip skinny vintage ties for her (okay, dweeby) male colleagues at the Times, who then wear them for TV appearances, significantly increasing their once-non-existent hip-factor. Her latest favorite gift for girlfriends is a one-of-kind vintage Prova scarf from Barneys; Michelle Obama has even worn one (that was not a present from Dowd, of course).  Maureen&amp;#039;s manners:  She&amp;#039;s the queen of thank-you notes. And when she cites published material in her column, she never fails to credit the actual writers (not just the media outlet). Few other columnists\u2014at the NYT or elsewhere\u2014are as gracious.  What her friends know but most people would never suspects: She&amp;#039;s quite shy. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s funny,&amp;quot; says Parker, &amp;quot;she has all these great clothes, but she never really goes out. She doesn&amp;#039;t like going to parties, that whole D.C. scene so many people love. She could look fantastic at all these events, but she just has no interest in that.&amp;quot;  Another surprise from the most powerful columnist in America: She flies coach. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s very populist,&amp;quot; Parker says. &amp;quot;I `d say, `Don&amp;#039;t you want to pay $40 to upgrade to economy plus? I mean, c&amp;#039;mon.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;   Savannah Guthrie: The Correspondent  If you were a Court TV junkie, you knew Savannah Guthrie years ago. She was the one who popped off the screen\u2014with a rare mix of intelligence, ease, toughness, and charm\u2014the one who had &amp;quot;future network star&amp;quot; written all over her. So it was no surprise that NBC snagged her and gave her the plummiest of assignments: White House correspondent. She did not disappoint. Guthrie&amp;#039;s reporting\u2014for NBC and MSNBC (including her morning show with Chuck Todd)\u2014 consistently hits it out of the park, and White House staffers and even fellow journalists have nothing but praise and respect for Savannah. &amp;quot;Savannah has that thing that you have to be born with,&amp;quot; says NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. &amp;quot;No school teaches it. You either have it or you don&amp;#039;t. She has it. She&amp;#039;s a first-rate lawyer, but you&amp;#039;d never know it. She&amp;#039;s very comfortable and accepted in the corridors of power, but she&amp;#039;d never tell you that. Instead, what you see is a woman comfortable in her own skin. Warm, human, and humane\u2014but razor sharp. Her gift is that most people see something of themselves in her\u2014but most people don&amp;#039;t cover the White House.&amp;quot; What she could have done instead:  She got the highest score on the Arizona bar exam, after graduating at the top of her class at Georgetown Law. (She&amp;#039;s from Tuscon. Yes, everybody thinks she&amp;#039;s Southern, &amp;quot;but that&amp;#039;s because of the name&amp;quot;\u2014her grandmother&amp;#039;s\u2014Savannah says). She even had a coveted clerkship with a federal judge lined up. &amp;quot;But a few months before I was supposed to start, I had something of an epiphany: I realized I wanted to go back to journalism.&amp;quot; She agonized over telling the judge, who asked if she had any job prospects. The answer was no; he suggested she reconsider clerking. &amp;quot;I told him, `I know you&amp;#039;re right, but I also know if I don&amp;#039;t go for it now, I&amp;#039;ll never have the courage to do it again.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; How to dress for the office, when the &amp;quot;office&amp;quot; is the White House: She gets up at 5 a.m., and &amp;quot;grabs what happens to be the least wrinkled. I don&amp;#039;t spend a ton of time thinking about clothes, but this is television so let&amp;#039;s be honest, you have to think about it a little bit. I am mindful that what might work when I&amp;#039;m anchoring doesn&amp;#039;t necessarily translate to the White House briefing room. I think you can be a bit more casual on set, brighter colors tend to look better\u2014but the last thing I want to do is show up at the White House looking like I&amp;#039;m dressed for a dinner party. If my colleagues down at the White House don&amp;#039;t particularly notice what I am wearing on any given day, I&amp;#039;ve been successful.&amp;quot;  Packing for trips with the Prez: &amp;quot;Obviously, a large suitcase is a must. But my trick is simple: jeans. Since TV only shows you from the waist up, I bring a bunch of different tops and a few pair of jeans and I&amp;#039;m good to go. I always pack a black wrap dress; it&amp;#039;s handy in a pinch, folds up nicely, doesn&amp;#039;t wrinkle\u2014and if you happen to get an interview with the president, you won&amp;#039;t be embarrassed. Three things worth taking up space in your suitcase: a good blow dryer, round brush, and flat iron.&amp;quot;   Kathleen Parker:  The Sparring Partner  It&amp;#039;s been a helluva year for Ms. Parker, a self-described &amp;quot;rational conservative.&amp;quot; In April, she won the Pulitzer for her Washington Post op-eds, which didn&amp;#039;t even include the one which famously infuriated her Republican base\u2014the one where she called Sarah Palin &amp;quot;out of her league.&amp;quot; Parker says, &amp;quot;I was just saying what everyone else was saying behind closed doors. I have a very thick skin but [the blowback] was beyond anything I ever experienced. Horrible.&amp;quot; Now all eyes are on her as she debuts a new CNN show with Eliot Spitzer\u2014yes, that Eliot. &amp;quot;Eliot is fabulous. I like him so much.&amp;quot; She recalls the dance she had with then-CNN president Jonathan Klein, who wooed her over drinks and turkey burgers at the Ritz and Four Seasons. &amp;quot;Then he calls and says, `All right, I want you to meet the person who might be your coanchor.&amp;#039; And I said, `Okaaay. Do you want to tell me who it is?&amp;#039; And he said, `Eliot Spitzer.&amp;#039; And I said nothing for several beats. And then I said, `Bold.&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot;  Where she keeps her Pulitzer:  On her mantel, surrounded by tea lights and next to her Buddha.  How CNN then-president Jon Klein wooed her: At the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington over a (shared) turkey burger.  How Eliot Spitzer wooed her: In his 5th Avenue office overlooking Central Park, across a huge table with a large platter of fruit. (&amp;quot;There was so much fruit!&amp;quot;)  What Eliot told her he told CNN: &amp;quot;She can hold her own with me.&amp;quot; Shocking revelation: &amp;quot;This is hard for people to accept but I&amp;#039;m not a Republican. I&amp;#039;ve never registered as a Republican. A right of center Independent would be my preference. I don&amp;#039;t like parties. They&amp;#039;re a pox on everyone&amp;#039;s house as far as I&amp;#039;m concerned. I&amp;#039;m not a party player, I&amp;#039;m not a member of their club, and I never was.&amp;quot; Her hopes for Parker/Spitzer: &amp;quot;An alternative to the right-left narrative. If you want to be reinforced on what you already think, go to O&amp;#039;Reilly or Olbermann. But we figure there are about 297 million people left who have no place to go.&amp;quot;  Her age: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not telling! Are we gonna date? If not, you don&amp;#039;t need to know.&amp;quot;  Her style: &amp;quot;Very simple, classic lines. Less is more.&amp;quot;  On whether she has a favorite designer: &amp;quot;Well, I never used to! (Laughs.) But now that I&amp;#039;ve had my photo shoot [for the show&amp;#039;s promos], I&amp;#039;m a Michael Kors girl.&amp;quot;  Where she shops: &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t shop. I do like to shop online, and I&amp;#039;m a catalog shopper too. But the way I do that is, I pick out everything I want and then I don&amp;#039;t buy it. So I get that shopping rush without going broke.&amp;quot;  How TV changed her wardrobe: &amp;quot;Yes, well, [CNN has] given me somebody to help me sort of fill out my closet. They want me wearing jewel tones. And well, I like whatever they like. They want me to look good, right? So I&amp;#039;m not gonna argue with them, but I do want to dress up a bit. I don&amp;#039;t want to look like I&amp;#039;m going to cover the Congress; I want to look like I&amp;#039;m at a dinner party. I&amp;#039;ve got these little D.C. suits that are just gonna have to sit in my closet.&amp;quot;  Why she dresses differently in NYC: &amp;quot;Well D.C. is just, it&amp;#039;s a much more Southern town. So my South Carolina clothes [where she is from and still keeps a home] look fine there. But up here, they look like I need to send them back to South Carolina.&amp;quot;  Her home style:  Seagrass and silk taffeta. I put seagrass on my floors and silk taffeta on my windows.&amp;quot;  Her best friend: &amp;quot;I have a blind poodle named Ollie that I adopted from a shelter a year ago. He was born blind, and I adopted him when he was 8. I went to a dinner party and I was overserved and I went home with a blind poodle. Seriously.&amp;quot;   Michelle Rhee:  The Reformer  Virtually the same week the acclaimed documentary Waiting for Superman debuted, portraying Michelle Rhee as Superwoman\u2014for the brave and brash (and highly controversial) decisions she made as superintendent of the dismal DC schools\u2014the person who appointed her and supported her, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in the primary. He lost, in large part, Rhee says, because &amp;quot;we closed schools, fired teachers, moved principals. I wish people would realize that it&amp;#039;s not because we don&amp;#039;t want people to have jobs in schools; it&amp;#039;s because we have to put the best interests of kids ahead of adults&amp;quot; and the almighty teachers&amp;#039; unions. (She even sacked the principal of her own daughter&amp;#039;s school.) While her future is uncertain (will Obama snap her up? Will she be kept on by the new mayor? Will she take off to Sacramento, California, where her fianc\u00E9, former NBA hoopster Kevin Johnson, just happens to be mayor?), the kids, at least, seem to embrace her and her un-schoolmarmish style. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s funny, the first day of school, I was wearing these cute gold Tory Burch peep-toes. They&amp;#039;re really hot. And every room I went into, a little girl would come up and say, `I love your shoes!&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot;  Her review of Waiting for Superman: &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re gonna cry. It&amp;#039;s so, so good. It&amp;#039;s hard for people to watch that movie and not just bawl.&amp;quot; Her life-changing experience: Teaching 2nd and 3rd grade for three years in Baltimore. &amp;quot;Because I was teaching the very kids that people across the country were saying, `Oh, these kids can&amp;#039;t learn, we can&amp;#039;t expect them to because of their home circumstances and environments and all that,&amp;#039; and I [found] the exact opposite happened.&amp;quot; On whether being a woman has helped or hurt her career: &amp;quot;I think it helps me tremendously that I&amp;#039;m a mother with children in the system. I had to hear my kids every day complain about the lunch. I think I approach everything with a different level of urgency because I see it as a mother.&amp;quot;  On her pending nuptials to Sacramento Mayor (and former NBA star) Kevin Johnson:  &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re going to elope.&amp;quot; Why we have a hard time believing her fianc\u00E9 was ever in the NBA:  When he visits her in Washington, he stays at the Donovan House (in other words, they don&amp;#039;t sleep together). &amp;quot;Kevin is very old-fashioned. He is! Oh, my gosh. And my older daughter [Starr, 11] is very conservative too, and she&amp;#039;s like, `I like that you guys don&amp;#039;t sleep in the same bed until you get married.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  Her attitude?: &amp;quot;It is hard. But it was really important to him. Because I do have kids who are very cognizant of what&amp;#039;s going on. And he&amp;#039;s like, `This is the example I want to set and that communicates the right message to the kids.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; How they met: At an education conference.  Her style: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a bit of a clothes horse, and pretty much I&amp;#039;m known for that. So I probably wear things that most people would not expect a school district superintendent to wear. Like, the day that we announced the test scores, I was wearing a cute little denim sleeveless dress with this really cute ruffle at the neck. Very, very cute. Very hip. I have a black suit, but for the most part when I come to work, I like to look really sharp and fresh and fun and modern. And I love heels. I cannot wear flat shoes. I can work it all day long in 3-1/2 inch heels.&amp;quot; Where she shops: &amp;quot;Oh, gosh, I shop everywhere. Nordstrom, that&amp;#039;s one of my favorites. Tahari is one of my favorite designers. And of course I&amp;#039;m on Bluefly. And my mother is always in TJ Maxx looking for stuff for me.&amp;quot; Her operating style: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m very efficient. And frank and to the point and no BS.&amp;quot;   Linda Daschle: The Persuader  In a city where lobbyists are the lifeblood (and often considered ruthless), Daschle stands out not only for commitment to her job\u2014when her husband, Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, was in power, she fiercely hung on to her career\u2014but also for her extracurricular activities. While she&amp;#039;s best known as the top woman lobbyist in DC (representing the mighty airline industry; one of her first jobs, before being crowned Miss Kansas, was as an FAA weather watcher), Beltway locals love her for the tireless work she does for the Ford Theatre and the N Street Settlement House (for abused women), among other causes. &amp;quot;My wife has a special place in her heart for women who have had to struggle to survive and have not had many breaks in life,&amp;quot; Tom Daschle says. As for the Miss Kansas thing, she played the piano. Well.  Why she&amp;#039;s devoted to N Street Village, a shelter for abused or addicted women and their children: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s one of those miracle places that help women get their lives back, and when I was introduced to it fourteen years ago and met some of these women, it was one of those moments when I said, No matter how busy I am. . .&amp;#039; But my relationship with them actually started with a horrible tragedy. In my own family. I had a grandmother who was murdered. And this happened in rural Oklahoma. You would never ever think someone who just lived on her farm would ever, you know, meet such a tragic end of life . . . It was a migrant worker; we don&amp;#039;t know why. This was a way that I thought I could honor my grandmother.&amp;quot; Why she&amp;#039;s equally devoted to the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome:  Kevin Costner! When Costner made Dances with Wolves in South Dakota (her husband Tom&amp;#039;s home state), he found out about the devastation caused by fetal alcohol syndrome. &amp;quot;No one really was paying attention to this issue, so Tom and Kevin&amp;quot; started the organization, Linda says.  How she got from Oklahoma to Washington:  She lived in 10 small towns in Oklahoma, then in Kansas. (Her father was a minister, &amp;quot;so we moved a lot.&amp;quot;) Then she was crowned Miss Kansas in 1976 and sent to the Miss America pageant ... Who she lost to: &amp;quot;Ugh, now we&amp;#039;re going back 34...we actually don&amp;#039;t touch that anymore. It&amp;#039;s kinda like...&amp;quot; The statute of limitations has expired? Right, &amp;quot;I have not watched the pageant for years and years and it&amp;#039;s kind of hard for me to believe I was ever associated, or\u2014I don&amp;#039;t want to say it that way because for a young woman, I mean, from Kansas, it truly was a great experience for me and I gained a lot, you know, whether it was self-confidence or whatever. But it was Dorothy Benham.&amp;quot; What she wanted to be when she grew up: &amp;quot;An air traffic controller. That was what my career goal was when I competed in the pageant, which I think the judges thought was a little kooky.&amp;quot; Her first job in the aviation industry (before becoming its top lobbyist):  A weather watcher for the FAA. &amp;quot;Every hour I took weather measurements to determine precipitation, what the winds were. And all the information was put in a report and sent out to pilots.&amp;quot; (This was pre-modern computers.) On being a lobbyist:  &amp;quot;People think it&amp;#039;s all just running to Capitol Hill and getting an earmark.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s not?!: &amp;quot;Right now my passion is to get GPS-like capabilities in the cockpit. If the Prius can have GPS, I don&amp;#039;t understand why a commercial aircraft can&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; They don&amp;#039;t already? &amp;quot;Well, I don&amp;#039;t want to oversimplify it, but ours is much more sophisticated and much more precise. And it&amp;#039;s interactive, because we&amp;#039;re still going to have a live air traffic controller at the other end, communicating with the pilots.&amp;quot; Not that woman&amp;#039;s voice? &amp;quot;Oh no.&amp;quot; Her personal style: Her daughter in law Jill Daschle describes it as part Jackie Kennedy, part Grace Kelly, all refined elegance. &amp;quot;For me, nothing is better than just a great dress and a pair of pumps,&amp;quot; Linda says. &amp;quot;And that&amp;#039;s it. I don&amp;#039;t know how you define classic Washington. But I would say my style runs probably a little bit more classic. I recently saw a bunch of old pictures of Grace Kelly, and I thought, I could wear every one of those.&amp;quot; Where she shops in DC:  Nieman&amp;#039;s, Saks, Nordstrom&amp;#039;s (&amp;quot;since it expanded&amp;quot;). &amp;quot;But I also don&amp;#039;t mind at all a Banana Republic or a J. Crew.&amp;quot; Her signature:  Black patent pumps.  Debbie Shore:  The Food Fighter  She started Share Our Strength, the premier hunger organization, 25 years ago with her brother Billy\u2014in response to the Ethiopian famine. They were both refugees from the Gary Hart campaign who, like Hart, &amp;quot;thought in big, bold ideas.&amp;quot; Today SOS is more powerful than ever, thanks to Michelle Obama&amp;#039;s child-nutrition crusade (when the First Lady asked Shore to help with an event dedicated to getting kids to eat right, Shore showed up at the White House with 700 chefs). Last month, Shore launched No Kid Hungry, seeking to end childhood hunger by 2015. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;d had a 20-year outlook to end child hunger. But when Obama said 2015, we said, `Hey, we&amp;#039;ll do it.&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; Luckily, SOS keeps its campaign promises. On the biggest misconception about fighting child hunger:  &amp;quot;Kids aren&amp;#039;t hungry because of a lack of food or a lack of services or programs\u2014we have plenty of these things. They&amp;#039;re hungry because of a lack of access to these programs and services, and if you eliminate the barriers\u2014stigma, transportation, awareness that the programs exist, complicated forms to fill out\u2014children who are eligible will be able to access these programs. For example, 10 million American children who are eligible for school breakfasts aren&amp;#039;t getting them. Our strategy is to eliminate those barriers. How she operates:  When Michelle Obama called on SOS to bring chefs to the White House to help with her obesity campaign, Shore showed up with 700. &amp;quot;And they learned how they can adopt a school, help their community provide more nutritious food, and just consult with schools to help kids learn about nutritious food, getting moving, exercise. Obesity is really the other side of the coin to hunger. It&amp;#039;s really about the lack of proper nutrition, the lack of proper calories.&amp;quot; Her biggest passion: Mexico. And we mean passion. &amp;quot;For 20 years I would go there on weekends when I could. I&amp;#039;d leave on Thursday and come back on Sunday night, and use every ounce of vacation time. I feel like I belong there somehow. I don&amp;#039;t know why.&amp;quot; She first visited her sophomore year in college, when she signed up for a semester abroad and lived with a Mexican family in Veracruz. &amp;quot;When we talk about Mexico,&amp;quot; says her close friend and fellow SOS board member, Los Angeles restauranteur Mary Sue Milliken, &amp;quot;her voice changes. She just gets dreamy.&amp;quot; The best thing she brought home from Mexico: Almost a decade ago, she took a year-long sabbatical from SOS and traveled the whole country. &amp;quot;Took a bus every two weeks to a new town. And well, a couple of things were interesting for me that year. For one thing, in Mexico, the Spanish phrase, `De que te de dicas?&amp;#039;\u2014to what are you dedicated?\u2014is how they ask what you do for a living. It&amp;#039;s a beautiful thing. And the first time I was asked, `To what are you dedicated?&amp;#039; I was so proud to talk about Share Our Strength.&amp;quot; But about what she brought home: &amp;quot;Well, my daughter Sofia just turned 9. She&amp;#039;s way the love of my life. I&amp;#039;m a single Mom. People bring back lots of gifts from their travels. (Laughs.) I brought her back. I tell her she was Made in Mexico, Born in the USA. Her father is Mexican. We don&amp;#039;t have a relationship, unfortunately. But you know, we met in Mexico towards the end of my year there, and...she&amp;#039;s just amazing. I had her at 45! It&amp;#039;s amazing in this world, there are people who try and try and try, and I was so not interested in being a single parent. At all. Wasn&amp;#039;t on my radar at all. Love kids, it just wasn&amp;#039;t on my radar. And then this child is just...she&amp;#039;s just everything to me. I barely can talk about her without...you know, I get teary when I talk about her.&amp;quot; (This, too, is true.) The hardest part about being a single mom: &amp;quot;I think parenting&amp;#039;s just so hard in general. I don&amp;#039;t know that I would separate it. I mean, there are some obvious challenges, but they&amp;#039;re more emotional than they are physical. It&amp;#039;s a lot to have a child. But it&amp;#039;s also\u2014it&amp;#039;s the two of us, and I make all the decisions, but we don&amp;#039;t have any tension&amp;quot;\u2014laughs\u2014&amp;quot;we just do our thing.&amp;quot; Sofia&amp;#039;s style: &amp;quot;Oh, she&amp;#039;s a funky little girl. And she&amp;#039;s itty bitty. So she wears tight little skinny jeans and tank tops and blue jean jackets and stuff like that. Flip flops. Though she&amp;#039;s been going barefoot, she walks home barefoot from school still, with me, and I let her take her shoes off. You know, all parents have something they&amp;#039;re crazy about. I&amp;#039;m not weird about things like that.&amp;quot; Debbie&amp;#039;s personal style:  &amp;quot;Fun. Energetic,&amp;quot; Milliken says. &amp;quot;She always looks wonderful, but she never looks like she&amp;#039;s taken all day to do it. It&amp;#039;s not, you know, precious.&amp;quot; Her signature: Big earrings. Very big earrings, which she purchases in Mexico or at artisan markets in D.C. &amp;quot;I like silver, I like color, I like hoops. And I like big rings. But my rings I never change. I have three of them. I&amp;#039;ve had them on for 30 years! (Laughs.) More. I&amp;#039;ve had them on since the Hart campaign. But I change my earrings all the time. I don&amp;#039;t like matchy stuff.&amp;quot; On turning 50 (she&amp;#039;s now 53): &amp;quot;Oh, it&amp;#039;s rough hitting 50. But it&amp;#039;s also life-changing. All the decades are great because they teach you something, they really do. I mean, for me, 40 was a very accepting decade of my life. I don&amp;#039;t mean that you settle. But for me, there was a wonderful acceptance; this was before I had a child. But I didn&amp;#039;t know that I needed my girl. That&amp;#039;s the thing\u2014I had no idea. Because I was very happy.&amp;quot; Her biggest inspiration: &amp;quot;My brother. It&amp;#039;s just the two of us. No parents, no other siblings. But I have more family in him than people do with a full household. I really mean that.&amp;quot; Six degrees of separation: Sofia is in the same third grade class as Michelle Rhee&amp;#039;s 9-year-old Olivia. At the only bilingual public school in the district. &amp;quot;I see her dropping off Olivia every morning. She&amp;#039;s much more stylish than I am, Oh my goodness.&amp;quot; Why to go to the school&amp;#039;s auction: &amp;quot;She cooks great Mexican food,&amp;quot; Milliken says, &amp;quot;and every year she auctions off this Mexican Fiesta at Sofia&amp;#039;s school&amp;quot; that she cooks and hosts at her home.  Dana Perino:  The Relevant Republican  It is the rare creature who can remain relevant in Washington after her administration is ousted. (She was the gifted and admired press secretary for George W. Bush.) But Perino, who likes to call herself a &amp;quot;cheerful conservative,&amp;quot; is that creature. She recently launched Minute Mentoring to advise young women entering the workforce and is on the women&amp;#039;s advisory board of the ONE campaign, an effort to end poverty. She is also, dare we say it, the most fair and balanced pundit on Fox News. &amp;quot;She has the insight of someone who&amp;#039;s actually been in the Oval Office when decisions were made,&amp;quot; her former White House deputy Tony Fratto says. What a random poll of men on the Hill had to say about her: &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s a babe!&amp;quot; What President Bush called her: &amp;quot;Sweet Dana.&amp;quot;  On her gig at Fox News: &amp;quot;I really enjoy it. I try to be a voice of reason. I&amp;#039;m a cheerful conservative, which I think drives some people crazy. They&amp;#039;re sort of confounded by it.&amp;quot;  Her biggest accomplishment: &amp;quot;My relationship with my husband Peter.&amp;quot; Who is a Brit, 18 years older than her, and whom she met on an airplane.  What Bush called her husband: &amp;quot;The Englishman&amp;quot; Her personal style:  &amp;quot;I grew up in the west (Wyoming and Colorado), so dressing up was not something I wanted to do or was really good at. Then I came to Washington, and I tried to play the role a little bit.&amp;quot; In dark pin striped suits, &amp;quot;which look good on some people, but not on me. So I try to find clothing that really does fit my personality.&amp;quot; Her White House style: &amp;quot;When I got the job as the press secretary, one of my first thoughts was, `Oh my god, what am I going to wear?&amp;#039; People really focus on that. My goal at the White House podium was for no one to ever comment on my appearance. I just didn&amp;#039;t want them to notice me! But I tried to wear some color. I like color. I found a designer that fits my style, and I like it very much. It&amp;#039;s Etcetera. Plus, I&amp;#039;m only 5 feet tall, so I have to have everything shortened, even if I buy it in the petites department.&amp;quot; Where she shops:  A lot online. Kenneth Cole, J. Crew. &amp;quot;I recently discovered that Theory fits me well. I also like Trina Turk.&amp;quot;  On what not to wear on TV: &amp;quot;Anything really shiny. Before high def, you also couldn&amp;#039;t wear white.&amp;quot;  Her former deputy Tony Fratto on the Perino style:  &amp;quot;Dana has one of these things that only women with the best style have, and that&amp;#039;s just a real sense of confidence. Some women have that thing and some don&amp;#039;t. Some women wear clothes in a very aspirational way, and she wears them in a very natural, inspirational way. And I don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;ve ever seen her in pants. And you&amp;#039;re not gonna see her take off her heels and put on running shoes because she&amp;#039;s going to walk to the Metro. She&amp;#039;s not one of those kind of girls.&amp;quot;   Stephanie Cutter:  The White House Fixer  Part communicator, part strategist, and always unflappably loyal, Cutter is often called &amp;quot;the one-woman SWAT team&amp;quot; in the White House. Since the administration last spring &amp;quot;coaxed her into coming back,&amp;quot; as senior Obama adviser David Axelrod puts it, her projects have included explaining health-care legislation to the public, and handling veterans&amp;#039; issues in the pullout from Iraq. (Her earlier gig was as spokesperson for embattled treasury secretary Tim Geithner.) &amp;quot;When you have an important assignment, she&amp;#039;s the first person you think of,&amp;quot; says Axelrod, who speaks with her daily. &amp;quot;She handles everything with such competence and a minimum of fuss.&amp;quot;  Cutter cut her chops in the Clinton White House, while also picking up a law degree from Georgetown at night. But she made her name working for Ted Kennedy. &amp;quot;My uncle thought the world of her,&amp;quot; says Caroline Kennedy, who calls Cutter &amp;quot;a really good friend, who really cares&amp;quot; as well as one she, too, relies on for counsel. &amp;quot;She can figure out the consequences of any action right at the beginning. She also inspires a lot of trust; you feel she&amp;#039;ll be on your side the whole way.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;My philosophy,&amp;quot; Cutter says, &amp;quot;is if you&amp;#039;re going to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for not a whole lot of money, why work for someone you&amp;#039;re not gonna be loyal to?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Everybody wants Stephanie,&amp;quot; says Kennedy.  On her style:  &amp;quot;She has a really fun way of dressing and presenting herself,&amp;quot; says Caroline Kennedy. (Cutter is a Nanette Lepore/Milly/Theory gal.) &amp;quot;I think the whole package or smarts and style is just so fascinating.&amp;quot;  Most unsung accomplishment:  She&amp;#039;s the person the Obama campaign turned to when Michelle Obama found herself in treacherous image waters after, for example, she said that the voters&amp;#039; embrace of her husband was making her &amp;quot;proud&amp;quot; of her country &amp;quot;for the first time in my life.&amp;quot; Predictably, Cutter doesn&amp;#039;t want to take credit for Mrs. Obama&amp;#039;s turn-around. &amp;quot;It around. &amp;quot;It was really just allowing Michelle to be herself. And allowing people to see the real Michelle.&amp;quot; What she could be doing instead:  When Obama right-hand man David Axelrod wooed her back to the White House, she had taken time off from the political-animal industry to teach at Harvard and start her own (very lucrative) communications consulting business. &amp;quot;She always has held out the option of going back,&amp;quot; Axelrod, &amp;quot;but the fact is, Stephanie has always been about public service. She loves it, that&amp;#039;s where her heart is. I&amp;#039;m hoping that she&amp;#039;ll follow her heart and stay with us.&amp;quot;  Her first job in politics:  Working on the Dukakis campaign as an intern. (First paid job: Working for Mario Cuomo.)  Something you might not expect from a Dukakis/Cuomo/Kennedy/Obama woman:  She learned to shoot a gun growing up in Massachsetts and is a damn good shot.   Jaci Reid:  The Giver  She is a tireless philanthropist\u2014having served on the boards of such prestigious DC-area institutions as the Kennedy Center and Fashion Fights Poverty. But her friend and fellow Washington Ballet board member Lizette Corro says that while Reid is best known for the glitzy charity stuff, the cause most dear to her is &amp;quot;making these enormous shepherd&amp;#039;s pies to bring to `her ladies,&amp;#039;\u2009&amp;quot; as she calls them, at the Mount Carmel House for homeless women. These days, Reid is doing it against all odds. A year and a half ago, she suffered a severe stroke\u2014losing her speech and the movement in half her body\u2014but even in her recovery, &amp;quot;her commitment hasn&amp;#039;t changed one iota.&amp;quot; In fact, she added health-care charities to her portfolio, particularly GW Hospital, which she credits with saving her life. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s dying to get back into her stilettos,&amp;quot; Corro says. &amp;quot;And she&amp;#039;s still feeding her ladies. That&amp;#039;s not gonna change.&amp;quot; The day that changed her life: &amp;quot;Morris, my husband, and I had just come back from Spain, London, and Los Angeles. And I was going out to the Hamptons to check on our summer house.&amp;quot; Life was pretty swell, in other words. &amp;quot;I was getting my clothes ready to catch a plane the next day, and I guess I fell, fell with a stroke. It was May 1st, 2009. Morris was in Beirut at the time (on business; he is a former Commerce under-secretary), and we don&amp;#039;t have kids so I was alone.&amp;quot; She was in her mid-40s, worked out regularly and appeared to be in perfect health; she woke up paralyzed on one side, spent the next two months in the hospital, mostly in ICU, and was told she&amp;#039;d be lucky to ever get out of a wheelchair. Her reply: &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t think so.&amp;quot; How the stroke changed her philanthropy: &amp;quot;It veered a lot of my interests into the health care profession, just to make sure that stroke victims can find the help that they need when they need it. All of my boards were important to me, but after the stroke, once I had my brain back, my speech back, and I was able to walk a little bit, thank God, it made me think about what is really important in life. Having been in the hospital for as long as I was, I did see a lot of patients who never had any visitors, never got any flowers. They were not necessarily uncomfortable because of pain, but because of loneliness. Her first step:  Going to hospitals to talk to stroke victims. &amp;quot;They can see me one year later [since her stroke], what I was then and what I am now, and they&amp;#039;re flabbergasted.&amp;quot;  The next one: &amp;quot;My goals now are very, very simple. First and foremost, I want to be able to get get my life back. I want to be able to walk through an airport, not necessarily be in a wheelchair. I&amp;#039;d like to be able to board a plane very comfortably. I&amp;#039;d like to be able to drive again. I&amp;#039;d like to be able to walk normally.&amp;quot; (&amp;quot;She is dying to get into her stilettos,&amp;quot; says her friend Lizette Corro. &amp;quot;But now she has what she calls her kitty-heels and she is extremely proud of that.&amp;quot;) Her first gig in Washington:  Came from Houston to work for then newly elected senator Carol Moseley Braun as the assistant to her chief of staff. Then worked as an aide in the Clinton White House, then for Madeleine Albright. &amp;quot;I had a lot of first females in my life.&amp;quot;  On her style:  &amp;quot;Well, the style I had was oh so very interesting, because I traveled the world [Morris is a lobbyist and Democratic strategist], so I could go to almost any boutique anywhere in the world, in Spain or London or Paris, or wherever, and I could just walk in, get a gown and wear it beautifully in New York City or beautifully right here in D.C. One thing I don&amp;#039;t have yet is my walk. And a lot of that is just my je ne sais quoi. So if I can get my je ne sais quoi back, I&amp;#039;m gonna be doing that very same thing. I love color, I love dresses. I love a nice suit. And I love a nice heel, a nice wedge.&amp;quot; But your style: &amp;quot;Probably classic, but with a little bit of an edge. I love animal prints, I love some of the checkers. I definitely take it up a notch. I&amp;#039;m not at all frumpy.&amp;quot; On whether the image of DC as frumpy is unfair: &amp;quot;No, I think it&amp;#039;s true! I think DC is very frumpy.&amp;quot; Where she shops:  Mostly in London and LA. &amp;quot;If I&amp;#039;m in DC, I normally go to the staple stores, like a Neiman&amp;#039;s or a Saks. Kate Spade in Georgtown sometimes has some very cute shoes and very cute bags. But I still have physical therapy five times a week, so I wear Juicy every day, because the jogging suit is comfortable.&amp;quot;  Her favorite designers: &amp;quot;Alexander McQueen was my favorite, and I&amp;#039;m so sad that we lost him. I mean, just classic, classic, classic. But edgy. You can always spot Alexander McQueen across the room. ..Roberto Cavalli. That&amp;#039;s the leopards. I like the leopards. I like Chanel...&amp;quot; One thing people don&amp;#039;t know about her that might surprise them: &amp;quot;I speak about five languages badly!&amp;quot;   Lisa Jackson:  The Eco-Chief  Three years before Barack Obama chose her as a member of his cabinet\u2014the first person of African-American descent to serve as EPA administrator\u2014Lisa Perez Jackson went to New Orleans to visit her mother, the woman who adopted her when she was less than a month old from an orphanage in Philadelphia, &amp;quot;who made one unselfish decision that changed my life.&amp;quot; It was her mother&amp;#039;s 77th birthday. It was also August 27, 2005\u2014two days before Katrina hit. She lived in the Ninth Ward, where Jackson was raised. Her dad was a mailman, her mother a secretary. The future EPA administrator spent her mother&amp;#039;s birthday driving her the hell out of New Orleans. When Katrina hit, two days later, &amp;quot;the house I grew up in and where my mother raised all her family was under water for two, three weeks. I always say `destroyed,&amp;#039; but you can actually go and physically see the shell of it.&amp;quot; You might say she was uniquely qualified to head the EPA. In addition to her lofty degrees\u2014summa cum laude from Tulane, a master&amp;#039;s in chemical engineering from Princeton\u2014she was head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (imagine that agenda) and chief of staff to then-NJ governor Jon Corzine. But after Katrina, and she got her mother safely out, she felt &amp;quot;a real pull to move\u2014to sort of give up the life and move back to New Orleans and help.&amp;quot; Her mother talked her out of it. &amp;quot;She was very adamant: `Don&amp;#039;t go back, I&amp;#039;m not there. Why would you go back?&amp;#039; And ironically, five years go by and now I&amp;#039;m the head of the EPA when we have the Gulf oil spill. So perhaps I wasn&amp;#039;t supposed to go back. Maybe Katrina wasn&amp;#039;t the right time, but I certainly don&amp;#039;t intend to waste the opportunity to try to help the Gulf Coast region now.&amp;quot; What she almost did instead: She originally wanted to be a medical doctor, until she became enamored with engineering. &amp;quot;So it&amp;#039;s not an accident that my job description is to protect human health.&amp;quot; But she also knew she didn&amp;#039;t want to be in a cubicle. &amp;quot;I like people too much.&amp;quot;  Fun fact: You should have seen her dance to Pandora at the photo shoot at 7 a.m. She has a style and a joie de vivre that is both refreshing for Washington and pretty cool for female cabinet members. (Remember all the hoo-hah over Madelaine Albright&amp;#039;s pins?)  What she had to learn: &amp;quot;I think, sadly, still, in this day and age, people make their first impressions based on how you look. So I have had to do things like learn how to apply makeup, learn how to do it for TV,&amp;quot; she says, laughing, &amp;quot;and to make sure that I don&amp;#039;t resent the fact that I want people to hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I have to first make sure they keep the TV on!&amp;quot;  What the head of the EPA does to keep potentially harmful chemicals out of her body: &amp;quot;No heating food in plastic containers in the microwave! Everybody has their own little thing, that&amp;#039;s one of mine.&amp;quot;  Lessons she learned from the Gulf Oil Spill:  &amp;quot;Preparedness. You can&amp;#039;t be prepared for something you haven&amp;#039;t thought about. It&amp;#039;s such a wakeup call to remember that on top of all the work we do every day at the EPA\u2014 protecting air quality, protecting water quality, and toxic chemicals\u2014now we also have to remember that we have to be able to respond.&amp;quot; Her prognosis on the Gulf now: &amp;quot;I like to say it&amp;#039;s too soon to write the story. I don&amp;#039;t think prognoses are appreciated. Because I think the people down there, you know, they do have a level of distrust in government, they don&amp;#039;t want to be painted a rosy picture, and they deserve not to have a pessimistic picture painted. What they need and should have is just data and an assurance that the government has a network of getting information and giving them the truth. A science based, fact-based truth. So I don&amp;#039;t like to speculate except to say that I do think the response was effective. Nothing good happens once the oil starts to spill. So it becomes a matter of trying to choose between a whole bunch of outcomes.&amp;quot;  Her most pressing concern besides the gulf: Toxic chemicals. What the average person can do: &amp;quot;Environmental change happens when people rise up and say, &amp;#039;This is not an acceptable situation. I want cleaner water and I want products and food that are healthy.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; Best advice she got from a former cabinet member:  &amp;quot;`When you do your job right, you find the right balance between managing internally with your EPA staff, and managing externally with all the people in Washington.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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