Here's to You, Andrea Mitchell

If Obama wins the election, I imagine there'll be a lot more crowing from the mainstream media--including feral Wolf Blitzer, pancake-faced Gloria Borger, cartoonish Paul Begala, butchy Rachel Maddow, weird David Gergen and the maniacal Chris Matthews, each of whom makes me feel like I'm going to upchuck my last meal. I mean come on, surely you can relate-- James Carville must come from another planet, perhaps Uranus. In fact, all those TV journalists seem kind of alien no matter how much makeup they use to cover the signs. But I do owe NBC's Andrea Mitchell a special debt of gratitude, and because of that she doesn't make me all the way to nauseous, just a little queasy.

Beginning back in 1987, when we were living in Washington, D.C., in some feeble attempt at privacy and anonymity I started giving the name "Mitchell" instead of "Rouda" when calling a restaurant for a reservation. Usually that's all I needed to say. Then one time, the person on the phone asked for a first name too, and instinctively I said "Andrea." Right away the voice on the other end brightened, fairly chirping, "Okay, that's a party of two for Andrea Mitchell for Saturday night, we look forward to seeing you!" This was back when reporter Andrea Mitchell, wife of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, was all over the TV. We got a good table.

That scenario has played out innumerable times since then. Even though Greenspan retired in 2006 and now we live in Maine, it still happens from time to time, depending on the political savvy of the reservation clerk.  They still think I'm that Andrea Mitchell, not some nobody named Andrea married to a guy named Mitchell. They're always a little disappointed when we show up, but still--we get that table.