Scripps Howard News Service
Weíre not telling stories out of school here, but in the news biz thereís such a thing as a story thatís too good to check out. It happens all the time in British tabloids, and weíre told, although we have no firsthand knowledge of such, that it happens, but only rarely, in the American media.
That may have been what happened in the infamous case of the $16 muffin.
In 2009, the U.S. Justice Department hosted a conference at the Capital Hilton where the guests were served a breakfast buffet of baked goods, fruit, and coffee ó pretty much the usual for these affairs.
The departmentís inspector generalís office, dividing up the cost of the bill as it was presented to them, came up with a figure of $16 per muffin and $10 per brownie. Within a brief stroll of the Hilton an upscale bakery sells a variety of muffins for $1.99 each.
It says something about the federal government and a convention hotel where the guests are there on someone elseís dime that the public was more than willing to believe it.
Hilton angrily retorted that the price, which it said effectively lumped everything together in the bill, included breakfast pastries, fruit, coffee and tea, etc., but also candy, soft drinks, iced tea, tax and tip.
According to the Associated press, the IG said that the cost per person at the breakfast reception was $14.74, just two cents over the allowable limit of $14.72, an overrun that suggests we should put the Justice Departmentís event planner in charge of the Pentagonís over-budget F-35 project.
Might we suggest the Justice Department treat its guests to breakfast in a part of Washington overlooked by tourists, the Dennyís on historic Bladensburg Road NE. For $16, the alleged price of the Hiltonís muffin, Dennyís will supply two Grand Slam breakfasts ó eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausages, hash browns, coffee and juice.
And the delegates will enjoy a lesson in U.S. history that our textbooks tend to minimize. The restaurant overlooks the road along which American troops fled from the British and kept right on going through Washington, which the redcoats burned that night.
The departmentís guests would leave well fed, well informed and well under budget.