Rebecca Schoenkopf is trying to give a West Coast edge to a Web property that’s oft considered tawdry by D.C. standards. Back in March, the L.A.-based Schoenkopf bought the left-leaning political blog Wonkette, which was famously first penned by Ana Marie Cox. If you recall, Cox grabbed national attention in 2004, for outing “Washingtonienne” Jessica Cutler, who blogged her Capitol Hill sexploits while working for Sen. Mike DeWine. Now, six months into the Commie Girl takeover (that’s the name of Schoenkopf’s personal blog), the Wonkette editrix made her first trip to Washington, entertaining fans of the site over the weekend at the downtown bar Bottom Line.
“I was a huge fan from the beginning, I was so mad when Gawker started and hired Ana Marie Cox, not because she wasn’t great, but I’d been writing d— jokes about politicians for years by then,” Schoenkopf told Yeas & Nays. “But I loved it.” That’s why, when former owner Ken Layne offered to sell her Wonkette, she jumped. “I was worried when I took it over that I would break Wonkette, that I wasn’t going to be fun enough,” she explained. “But, I mean, right away when we started, we had Rush Limbaugh just being a nightmare.”
Schoenkopf doesn’t have a favorite story thus far, but she knows who she likes and who she doesn’t. “I love Joe Biden, and it’s not because I’m making fun of him; it’s because I seriously love that man,” she said. On the outs with her? Diane Sawyer. “I was not an Al Gore fan, but when she interviewed Al Gore when he was running and she would only focus on Clinton’s infidelities, like what does that have to do with anything?” she questioned.
Schoenkopf also wouldn’t give us the ingredients to the Wonkette writing style. “Yeah, there is kinda a secret recipe,” she mused.
