It’s the biggest weekend in Washington, second only perhaps to Inauguration, which you clever kids know from civics class only comes once every four years (and without as many brunches).

So, here it is, the best of the fetes, as we scour the tables at the Washington Hilton to find someone not represented by Bob Barnett.

BEST OUTREACH BY A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL

Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. No one walks in LA, but apparently Hollywood hottie and “Entourage” star Adrian Grenier was making his way on foot to the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair after party when he was spotted by none other than Rahm Emanuel. The White House Chief of Staff’s brother, Ari Emanuel, was the inspiration for the high-strung, heavyweight agent portrayed by Jeremy Piven on the hit HBO show “Entourage.”

Rahm immediately had his motorcade pull over and Adrian hopped in. Now that’s taking it to the people!

BEST CELEBRITY BOOKING

FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren and John Coale, for not only getting reality star Kim Kardashian but for also not bragging about it. Technophile Greta photographed Kim’s every move and introduction on every red carpet (there were plenty).

NOT REPRESENTED BY BOB BARNETT

Kim Kardashian, but it’s only a matter of time. They did seem to enjoy a nice chat at the WHC Garden Brunch.

GREATEST ACT OF KINDNESS

Tony Romo. While at the MSNBC after party, the Dallas Cowboys Quarterback made a call to Chris Olson, brother-in-law of Politico’s Sara Olson as he recovered from emergency surgery in the hospital. Sara’s hubby Eric and Chris LOVE the Cowboys, so he approached Romo with the request – as you can see in this photo he jumped right in.

BEST WASHINGTON SPORTS FAN

Dan Pfeiffer, White House Communications Director. Pfeiffer initially refused a shooter from Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo exclaiming, “I am a Redskins fan,” while at the Friday night New Yorker party at the W.

MOST GRACIOUS GUESTS

The Jonas Brothers and family. Washington felt the loss of communications guru Carolyn Weyforth to this multitalented group but each member of the family is so engaging we can’t hold a grudge, especially after watching the family sign and smile for thousands of political and media fans.

BEST BUDS

The three amigos: actors Matthew Morrison of “Glee”, Chace Crawford of “Gossip Girl”, and Joe Mazzello of HBO’s “The Pacific”. Hundreds of hearts throbbed and cameras snapped as this trio of young stars were seen all over town from Café Milano to the Capitol. They also made many a Mom proud when they jumped on stage at the WHC Garden Brunch to help raise awareness for Mothers Day Every Day and CURE Epilepsy. Awww.

BEST NETWORK ANCHOR MOMENT

Morgan Freeman and Katie Couric. He not only lends his voice to the “CBS Evening News” intro, but Morgan Freeman offered up his hands to massage anchor Katie Couric’s tootsies at the Bloomberg/Vanity Fair party. Now that’s networking!

BEST TABLE GIFT

POLITICO.  Their guests found ebony BlackBerry covers imprinted with the bright red POLITICO logo waiting for them on their tables at the dinner. The covers are examples of sleek and simple branding, and quite handy.

BEST BOLDFACE FASHION

Kim Kardashian for wearing her mom’s vintage Valentino bought in Paris in 1984.  And Newsweek’s Jon Meacham for wearing JPress and telling POLITICO about it.

MOST WANTED RETURN GUEST – FEMALE

Candice Crawford, the former Miss Missouri and sister of People‘s Hottest Bachelor 2009 Chace Crawford…and girlfriend of Tony Romo. There are plenty of fellas in DC who would welcome her back sans her hunky beau (but you can bring Chace back with you, if you like).

MOST WANTED RETURN GUEST – MALE

Bradley Cooper, star of “The Hangover” and the upcoming remake of “The A-Team,” made his second appearance at the WHCA Dinner this year. We’re hoping that the Georgetown U grad (and one of People’s Most Beautiful 2010) will make it a hat trick.

BEST NEW EVENT

Robert and Elena Allbritton’s Politico Sunday Brunch.  An elegant civilized way to wrap up the weekend and say good-bye to new friends.

BEST PILLOWS

Bloomberg/Vanity Fair party swag were plush white pillows printed with fun quotable presidential quotes. Film ingénues Rosario Dawson and Anna Kendrick were seen smiling over this one:

Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.

- Herbert Hoover

BEST RED CARPET MASH-UP

The Jonas Brothers and Texas oil and gas executive/energy independence commando T. Boone Pickens at the WHC Garden Brunch.

COOLEST WASHINGTONIANS

Carol Blue and Christopher Hitchens: the only two people who could stand in the middle of a Vanity Fair party and not look around to see who was there.

Vanity fair, co-host of the hottest party of the weekend has come with their own White House Correspondents Mad Lib. Bravo!

Guest mixologist Rachel Maddow serves David and Susan Axelrod

WHCInsider has the exclusive news: Party powerhouse MSNBC, coming off an already legendary 2009 Radio and TV Dinner after party, is taking on the Bloomberg | Vanity Fair juggernaut in 2010 for the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, May 1.

The White House Correspondents weekend is a time for the networks and their print counterparts to entertain their clients, show celebrity muscle, and bring Washington elites together. There is no more competitive time slot that weekend than the Saturday after party sweepstakes, dominated for years by Bloomberg.

Jason Binn’s Capitol File magazine began their own after party in 2008 to much success. With a breathtaking cover featuring new D.C. residents—Obama’s Valerie Jarrett and Desiree Rogers—Binn gathered top politicos in 2009, after hitting the dance floor in 2008.

MSNBC, which has enjoyed much ratings success and made itself a primary player in the Washington political media culture, will give everyone a run for their money this year.

MSNBC’s party will be created by top event producer, Philip Dufour, mastermind of the Radio and Television after party. If you are one of the lucky few to receive an invitation, we’ll see you at the Mellon auditorium.

MSNBC President Phil Griffin and MSNBC Star Ed Schultz

Beltway Boys from Vanity Fair article: Jim VandeHei, John Harris, Robert Allbritton, Mike Allen. Photograph by Gasper Tringale.

Don’t miss Michael Wolff’s great article in Vanity Fair.

On the surface, a paean to Politico: “Four old-media veterans may have solved the future of news with the Politico Web site.”

But arguably a look at Washington’s Fourth Estate and the problems facing general interest newspapers, which are losing readers and revenues at a fast clip. The irony? Politico’s print edition is what has edged their business model out of the red and closer to black.

From the article:

“Politico puts its current traffic at 6.7 million unique visitors per month (down from a high of more than 11 million during the campaign), yet it still can’t support its staff of about 100 on the Internet’s low advertising rates (although, with its agenda-moving audience and its preponderance of advocacy advertisers, it manages to get a higher rate than most sites). But one effect of its Internet traffic and notoriety and the ensuing attention of cable news shows is that the original Allbritton idea for a Capitol Hill paper-one that now largely reprints Internet content-has become, with its special-interest-size circulation of 32,000, a major success. Internet cachet, in other words, has enabled a tabloid-size print version of Politico (also called Politico) to thrive and more than double the company’s revenues-which, just about evenly split between Internet and newspaper, will, it appears, be more than $15 million in 2009-meaning, according to C.E.O. Fred Ryan, that Politico, paying its staffers at nearly the level that The Washington Post pays (starting salaries for reporters at the Post are about $45,000 per year), has hit breakeven.”

With Donald Rumsfeld, who lives down the street, stopping by for a drink, it was a night, a location, and a crowd where anything could happen. Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Vanity Fair Editor Graydon Carter, joining party forces this year, welcomed the exclusive guests.

The brave captain of the Maresk Alabama, who offered his life in exchange for his mates, was Bloomberg’s special guest for the weekend. That followed getting the keys to New York City from Mayor Bloomberg the day before. Captain Richard Phillips shrugged off the compliments of celebrities (Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore) and politicos who lined up to shake his hand, but he did pose proudly with another real-life Captain America, Chesley Sullenberger, who safely piloted a US Airways jet onto the Hudson River.

Earlier in the day, Phillips and his wife, Andrea, met with President Obama in the Oval Office, after a private tour of the White House. The unflappable captain told Bloomberg it was an “honor to meet the President. He’s a very amazing man and he’s a very down-to-earth man.” His wife agreed, “It was very overwhelming, surreal to actually, be inside the Oval Office … I was so deeply excited to have met the President like that.”

After being introduced to the Commander-in-chief, Phillips admitted it was hard to get excited about meeting anyone else after being introduced to the Commander-in-Chief.

The dinner that kicked the evening off, the White House Correspondents Dinner, recognizes the stars of the White House press corps, many of whom shined brightly at the Bloomberg | Vanity Fair party afterwards. At one end of the party media veterans – Barbara Walters, Margaret Carlson, Jon Meacham, Jim Bell, Andrea Mitchell, Bill Plante, John McLaughlin, and Al Hunt — rubbed elbows with the new kids on the media block – Katherine Weymouth, Chuck Todd, Savannah Guthrie, Jake Tapper, Lara Logan, Michael Calderone, Betsy Fischer, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei.

And the stars from Hollywood mingled with the brightest lights from stage and screen: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Natalie Portman, Claire Danes, Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett, Chace Crawford, Ali Wentworth, Kerry Washington and Denis Leary.

Celluloid royalty Jonathan Rhys Meyers could be found in one room, real royalty, His Highness Prince Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein in another, and a Supreme, Justice Antonin Scalia, in yet another. And real rock stars, like Sting and Jon Bon Jovi, mingled with Obama rock stars: Valerie Jarrett, David and Susan Axelrod, David Plouffe and his wife Olivia Morgan, Peter Orszag, Dan Pfeiffer and Sarah Feinberg and cabinet members Shaun Donovan, Steven Chu, Hilda Solis, and Lisa Jackson. Also at the party, Team Obama’s pit crew led by Tommy Vietor and Katie McCormick Lelyvold, Reid Cherlin, Marissa “Ground Zero” Hopkins, Sally Armbruster, Amanda Anderson, Kate Kochman, Katie Johnson and the cool and collected Eric Lesser.

Jon Favreau standing next to Graydon Carter looked like he belonged at all Vanity Fair parties. Team Fav favorites Sarah Hurwitz, Cody Keenan, and Jon Lovett who helped pen the President’s dinner remarks, were like the President they serve, modest in their success.

The Emanuel family represented multiple spheres of influence: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (the butt of one of Obama’s better jokes) his National Institutes of Health bioethicist brother Zeke, and Ari, a Hollywood agent depicted in “Entourage,” who left early to get his son Noah home for Mother’s Day.

What was unusual about the party was its low-key, matter-of-fact quality. There was no push to meet and greet the biggest bold-faced name, no jostling for position near the celebrities, no rubbernecking fans. As the party wound down, it was just a group of friends, old and new, enjoying the conversation, the trees lit by red, white and blue lights, and the soft warm May breeze.