D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams might have wanted to take an easy Sunday away from the grind of managing a city of 570,000. He might have woken late, sat down to a hearty breakfast, sipped coffee, and flipped through the morning papers while glancing at the Sunday morning talk shows. But yesterday’s Sunday routine was probably rudely interrupted by the Post, whose front-page, above-the-fold story titled “District Dodges Spending Laws: Companies Snare Contracts With Connections, not Competition” detailed some $425 million in unauthorized payments and no-bid contracts over the course of 3,317 words spread over two full pages of newsprint. This was no regular Sunday for Williams, much less would it be a regular week.

The Post’s story, and a follow-up published today, was one many residents had heard all too often. Government largesse amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars is funneled to well-connected contractors with little or no oversight or supervision, often in violation of ethical standards and laws meant to protect against such acts. The difference with the violations as they occurred in the District is that Williams has prided himself on setting straight the city’s financial standing, one wrecked by years of mismanagement and corruption under former mayor Marion Barry. Williams even used to be the city’s Chief Financial Officer, the official most knowledgeable of the minutiae of government finances and spending. If the Post uncovered anything, it is that an administration that boasted of efficiency and responsibility might be anything but, and the man leading it, a man well-versed on the city budget and spending, was either hopelessly unaware of the wasteful and illegal spending or completely aware and supportive of it. Either way, Williams and his administration may have taken a serious blow with the Post’s revelations, so much so that it may affect his remaining year in office and embolden his opponents and detractors.