Smith Point, Junior League, and Rugby’s have nothing on dinner and drinks at Katherine Graham’s, Henry Kissinger’s, or Averell Harriman’s. Arthur Schlesinger’s overcrowded desk of journals and written history may delight more than an overcrowded table top of spilled beer at Old Glory. The crowd that has infiltrated the Georgetown set for the last 7 years has less opinions on the Western European financial structure or secret Russian/Venezuelan naval exercises and more about the increased drink prices at watering holes such as Town Hall. And granted with the Bush-Cheney administration, the young Cold War progressives of the Kennedy-Johnson era were replaced by the young conservatives of the War on Terror era.

But I feel something has been missing regardless of ideological standpoints. The meatiness of of the conversation quality and the William F. Buckley-esque conservative intelligencia has faded. Debates over the biggest issues of our age are now replaced with gossip talk about “who’s starring on The Hills or how Smith Point is converting demographically.”

Although M and Wisconsin was stacked with a spectacle of those described above, the neighborhood itself hasn’t lost its flair. Georgetown stalworts like The Washington Post Editor Emeritus Ben Bradlee and the Ickes family still romp the area. Known for their lavish dinner parties visited by both Republicans and Democrats, where Truman Capote or Arthur Crock would dish dirt on some of the most prominent people of the last century and Joseph Alsop was a regular equipped with his “All the Way with LBJ” hat, the golden age of Georgetown lost its luster as Reagan ignored it, Clinton held a love/hate relationship with it, and both Bush’s only surrounded themselves with the crowd whenever politically feasible.

Will the new administration be any different? Obama is technically a newcomer to the scene and although he has been a Washington political fixture since 1973, Vice President-elect Joe Biden has never been a regular of the Washington social scene as he would head every night home to Delaware by train.

And Georgetown is no longer the cultural heartbeat of DC as it was during the Cold War. The city has expanded with vibrant life, style , and culture to other areas such as U Street, Adams Morgan, K Street, H Street Corridor, and Foggy Bottom. Not to mention non-DC areas such as Rosslyn and Bethesda. And although I saw more Obama/Biden signs than McCain/Palin signs in yards in front of Georgetown homes this past campaign season, the pulse of DC is gaged by other indicators. It will be interesting to see if the presence of a younger president and a generation that has come of age will influence the substance of conversations of both young conservatives, liberals, and independents.

And the old days were not all roses and sunshine. Segregation still loomed in Washington D.C. There were also some progressives in Georgetown during that time that talked more about direct action and good works than taking power into their own hands and actually doing something about it. Although young conservatives and liberals in the Georgetown scene may argue over that government’s role in their lives, many of them have taken their can do spirit and turned it into a serious force for good unlike any generation before them. From the Gold Cup to the Blond’s vs. Brunettes powder puff football game, the younger Georgetown generation has been encouraging strong commitments for the less fortunate all while donned in sun dresses in summer and v-neck sweaters in winter.

Hopefully the good works will be laced with good times, high fashion, and intellectual thought…regardless of who holds The White House.