GQ would like you to know it has its finger on the pulse of the Washington powerbroker scene. Its plan: putting out one of those tedious, arbitrary lists that ranks the 50 most powerful people in D.C.
Right off the bat they decided for whatever reason to disqualify Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as Joe Biden, from the list. Naturally, you don't want people with obvious power to occupy your list of powerful people. Their inclusion doesn't make your selection process obscure enough, thus hurting the insider status you're so clumsily trying to cultivate.
The whopping seven GQ staffers who compiled this list did so through the painstaking process of extensive guesswork. Okay, okay, reporter Raha Naddaf told Politico they chatted up journalists, congressmen, lobbyists, think tankers to help come up with the list, but then admitted that GQ was interested in featuring people from a vast collection of backgrounds.
Which means they're not really interested in determining who has the most power so much as they are in rounding up a fun cross-section of Washington. Which is how Alexander Ovechkin shows up at number 48 on the list and the top GOP members of each house of Congress do not appear at all. Because the NHL MVP is where you go when you're interested in passing health care reform.
