As a certified Native Washingtonian, Frank Rich really ought to know better than to say things this stupid to the New York Times:

The family settled back in Washington when Louis-Dreyfus was 8, and she grew up there, watching the world of Washington as both a native and an outsider. It gives her an edge, says Frank Rich, the former Times columnist who serves as an executive producer on Veep. “It’s a very rare, idiosyncratic thing to have grown up in Washington not as a part of a political family,” he says. “It’s a very off-center take that you get. . . . Certain things about Washington never change, including the fact that it’s not nearly this romantic Hollywood set that people outside think it is. . . . It’s actually a place where people dress out of fashion, where there are a lot of aspiring young people who have grunt jobs and live terribly. . . . And if you grew up there as not part of a political family, you’re in on the joke.”

Emphasis mine. I take the point that people who live in D.C. don’t romanticize it, but that’s not exactly a novel observation. This, by the way, is the same Rich who wrote a lengthy piece 10 years ago about how superior New York is to D.C.

Anyway, at Arts Desk, Jonathan L. Fischer is starting a new feature with DCist’s Benjamin R. Freed to discuss HBO’s show as it airs. Mosey on over there for the latest.

Film still by HBO