They're "the hottest brother act since the Kennedys: tougher than the Mannings, smarter than the Baldwins, more profane than the Sheens," gush Washington Post gossip columnists Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger in today's The Reliable Source lead item headlined "Showing the love of tough brothers."

"Get ready -- the Emanuel boys are taking their show on the road," Roberts and Argetsinger enthused, noting the promotional tour that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D), his elder brother Zeke -- an Obama health-care policy advisor --, and younger brother Ari --a high-powered Hollywood agent -- are taking to promote Zeke's new memoir "Growing Up Emanuel":

Spike Lee erroneously tweeting the address of an unrelated elderly couple, rather than George Zimmerman, was a "mean, boneheaded, thoughtless and harmful thing to do." But alas, he's shown, and tweeted contrition, Washington Post's Erik Wemple blogged approvingly yesterday. Heck, Lee even "repeated the apology in a phone call, a conversation that left the couple feeling better about the ordeal," Wemple gushed in his 8-paragraph March 30 blog post, "Spike Lee apologizes, atones for screwup."

Yet in the midst of effusively praising Lee for his apology and financial settlement with the McClains, he failed to consider what, if any, apology Lee was willing to extend to Zimmerman and his family for wishing to set him in harm's way. Isn't Lee's apology simply self-serving as it was extended to a party he never intended to harm in the first place?

To Washington Post staffers Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger, former president Bill Clinton is "Charlie Sheen without the crazy, a polymath with no 'stop' button -- and, yeah, a total bitchin' rock star."

That's how the gossip columnists cooed about Clinton's appearance at Sunday's Kuwait-America Foundation dinner in their March 8 The Reliable Source feature.

Washington, DC is considered more hip whenever the power balance shifts to the left.  I didn't say that - Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts of the Washington Post's Reliable Source column said it.  Wow!  WaPo writers acknowledge that the snoberati equate hipness and style with leftist politics. 

"Our examination of the evidence suggests that his [Obama's] influence on the city's cool/host metrics may be overstated," the duo report.  They then give as evidence a little snapshot of city hotspots, star presence, fashion, and reality TV. 

Count me impressed that WaPo writers question the whole "left is hip" zeitgeist.  My only quibble here is that the Reliable Source suggests that people in DC no longer wear running shoes with pantyhose to work.  Clearly, they are not on my bus or train route.

"Don't you hate it when you pop a bottle of champagne and it's flat? So, too, with some of these inaugural balls," Washington Post gossip gals Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts alerted their readers in the January 20 edition of "The Reliable Source."

While none of the official PIC balls have been cancelled, the unofficial ones that have been cancelled or are on life support to be the ones geared towards the average Joe Sixpack and to America's military veterans:

If you nabbed a ticket to one of the official balls sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee tonight, you're fine. But some of the other high-profile parties have been canceled or are still scrambling to cut costs and sell last-minute tickets, leaving ballgoers disappointed or out in the cold.

The People's Ball at the Grand Hyatt announced a blue-light special yesterday: Tickets slashed $100 -- to $250! The American Music Ball, hosted by Dionne Warwick, which planned two big-name events at the Marriott Wardman Park, was scrambling to sell enough tickets ($450 for the Legends ball with George Clinton, Chaka Khan and the Temptations; $350 for the Urban ball with Ludacris, Fantasia, and Cedric the Entertainer) for the show to go on -- and it wasn't looking good last night, said sources.