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Saturday, November 10, 2001
By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette National Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Mike Doyle yesterday said he was disappointed by a national magazine's "twisted" portrayal of him, other congressmen and a group of young ladies at a Washington restaurant two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Doyle, D-Swissvale, said the article in Vanity Fair magazine's December issue "took an innocent evening and twisted it into something that it wasn't. . . . That's how people's reputations are wrecked.
"People who know me will see it for what it is," he added.
The article does not allege any improper behavior by Doyle. But among the photos accompanying the article are two that show Doyle laughing with a group of young women and fellow congressmen.
The photos were taken Sept. 13 at the Capital Grille, where Doyle and other lawmakers gathered for dinner after they toured the Pentagon to view the damage that terrorists had caused when they piloted a jet airliner into the Defense Department headquarters two days earlier.
In Washington, the article and photos have already raised a stir.
A gossip columnist in The Washington Post reported yesterday that "denizens of Capitol Hill" had their "knickers in a twist" over the story, "detailing the flirtations and sexual misadventures of young female staffers and members of Congress."
Roll Call, a newspaper that circulates on Capitol Hill, called the story "explosive" and a "steamy kiss-and-tell."
The article, written by Vicky Ward and titled "Meanwhile, Back On Capitol Hill," focuses on 22-year-old congressional staffer Diana Davis. She has since resigned from her job with Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., as a direct result of the article's publication. But the Vanity Fair article does not actually state that she was intimate with any lawmaker.
"I'm disappointed that they took what was a very innocent evening and twisted it into something that it wasn't," Doyle said. Sept. 13, he said "was a terrible day. We [congressmen] went to the Pentagon and viewed the wreckage. We had a classified briefing. Our spirits were down. So we said, 'Let's go out and have dinner together."'
Doyle said Davis and her friends were introduced as House "employees" when they joined the dinner gathering. He also said one of the three, a British woman named Caroline Chatterton, who was working as a House intern, asked if she could take pictures for her scrapbook.
Those photos -- two showing Doyle and fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Brady, D-Philadelphia, with Davis and her friend Beth Stesanchik -- are used to illustrate the Vanity Fair article. The only mention of Doyle in the article's text says he sat silently at the table. But a photo caption cites him among the congressmen and young women "all unwinding" at the Capitol Grille that night.
Doyle said he didn't know who had invited the three women to be part of the dinner.
"We don't know them from Adam. Here we are in a restaurant, in a private room, so we could be by ourselves. Then, 20 minutes before we left that room, these three employees, introduced as being employed by our colleagues, came in."
The Vanity Fair story indicates that a lobbyist attending the lawmakers' dinner invited Davis, Chatterton and Stesanchik to join the group. Doyle's group was at the restaurant with Paul Magliocchetti, a former Pittsburgher who owns a Washington lobbying firm.
Doyle said the lawmakers at the gathering were part of his "surrogate family, a group of guys" with whom he often socializes in Washington.
"Look, I'm a Pittsburgh guy. Five minutes after the last vote [of the week], I'm on my way home to Pittsburgh. But when I am in Washington, I have a surrogate family," Doyle said yesterday.
He added that the group usually orders Chinese or pizza and eats in an apartment that some of them share.
"The Capital Grille -- I've been there two times in the last six months. That's not our stomping ground."
U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle