It is a sad day, in DC: Chris Hitchens' canceled his White House Correspondents' Dinner party. Sort of. Vanity Fair just merged it with the overcrowed Bloomberg gala.

See, DC gets one big party, every year, at the WHCA dinner. It is like their Oscars and Fashion Week and SxSW and Spring Break combined, except with fewer celebrities, and the celebrities that do show are usually about 10 years past their prime, and also the event itself and 90% of the associated parties really suck, instead of just mostly sucking.

So for years the most important part of the event was the Bloomberg afterparty, the most coveted ticket in town. They hold these parties are embassies and there is an open bar and some models imported from New York and, you know, Hank Kissinger and Adam Nagourney and all the other superstars of DC are there, getting drunk.

But meanwhile, at Chris Hitchens' house, a smaller, more intimate, cooler party is secretly going on! This one has Paul Wolfowitz and Ana Marie Cox and Christiane Amanpour and Dee Dee Myers! And the chances of a drunken writerly brawl are a bit better there than at Bloomberg, it has to be said.

But this year, Vanity Fair decided to team up with Bloomberg to throw a party at the home of the French Ambassador, who apparently lives right down the street from Hitch. This means VF's party will be bigger and less exclusive and Bloomberg's party will be smaller and less extravagant. Lose-lose! God damn this Obama recession, ruining everything.