Since they were apparently sick of all the best scoops going to the Post, the folks at the City Paper have been nice enough to grant us a little nugget of information — Mike DeBonis, currently Senior Editor at the alt-weekly, will become the newest Loose Lips columnists.

As you may recall, in late June James Jones stepped down as author of the vital local politics column, choosing to move on to a stint at the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. And though they could have chosen from an outside pool of talent to be the column’s sixth author since it launched in 1983, the City Paper opted to stay in-house, moving DeBonis up in the ranks. DeBonis has been on staff since 2004, having served as an intern, an assistant editor and a senior editor. Editor in Chief Erik Wemple had this to say:

[DeBonis] is an incredible stickler for facts; he can write like there’s no tomorrow; he loves the Web and knows it inside and out; and he loves to report and report and report, which is the essence of this paper. He will preside over an awesome period of political coverage by WCP, perhaps unparalleled in the entire country.

Though we don’t doubt DeBonis’ chops as a writer and reporter, is the Loose Lips beat really “unparalleled in the entire country”? Washington may be home to the federal government, but in terms of local politics, it’s still something of a small town. And though we love our local pols and their antics, it can even get boring for us sometimes — and we live for this stuff.

Either way, our congrats go out to DeBonis. Local politics wouldn’t be the same without Loose Lips around.