By Cassidy Lee · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Kate Coe on FishbowlLA, February 2008
In late February 2008, FishbowlLA ran one of its “FBLA Goes to the Party” dispatches — covering Slate editor Jacob Weisberg’s launch event for his book The Bush Tragedy. The Domino-sponsored party drew 300 guests to Arianna Huffington’s Brentwood mansion.
Then
The “FBLA Goes to the Party” format was one of FishbowlLA’s recurring editorial registers — a society-column-style dispatch from LA-media-and-entertainment-world events.
Jacob Weisberg was, in February 2008, the editor of Slate. The Bush Tragedy was his psychological-and-political portrait of George W. Bush, published in the final year of the Bush administration.
The original FBLA piece cataloged the attendees — Adrian Grenier, Tracey Ullman, Christine Lahti; Dale Launer and Stephen Gaghan; producers Lawrence Bender, Mike Medavoy, Sam Goldwyn, and George Stevens.
Now
Jacob Weisberg left Slate’s editorship and in 2018 co-founded Pushkin Industries with Malcolm Gladwell — the podcast company that has become one of the more substantial premium-podcast operations of the post-2018 audio era.
Arianna Huffington left The Huffington Post in 2016 to found Thrive Global.
The broader “FBLA Goes to the Party” society-dispatch format has substantially disappeared as a media-industry editorial register. The 2008 piece reads now as a small documented society-snapshot of the LA media-and-entertainment world at a specific late-Bush-era moment.
Original report archived on the Wayback Machine.