Given this week’s bribery plea by former city council member Michael Brown, I am saving up to pay off my bets that Mayor Vincent Gray would escape the long arm of U.S. Attorney Ron Machen. People scoffed when I said Gray would skate. Now I’m thinking they were right. More on that later.

First, please indulge me: This is a column I never wanted to write. It is my last for The Washington Examiner. You will be able to read my columns on washingtonian.com next month, but I will miss the print essay. Since I started writing for newspapers in the mid-1970s, writing a city column for a daily paper was my dream. I aspired to throw prose punches like Chicago’s Mike Royko or New York’s Jimmy Breslin. I failed most days.