Those of you who spent the hours and days after the Democratic primary bemoaning that the District’s new leadership would result in a restoration of the Council’s “old ways,” well, you might want to give Alan Suderman’s weekly Loose Lips column the old la-la-la-la, I can’t hear you routine.

Over the span of nearly 1,100 words, Suderman reports out the following gems from Councilmember Marion Barry: Barry claims that, based on the results of the election, residents east of the Anacostia River should get “more than our fair share”; he delivered a “unification” speech that called for “redistribution”; he claims that he forced Councilmember Mary Cheh apologize to him for calling said speech “rhetoric”; and then he blamed the entire misunderstanding on “haters.” Oh, and presumptive new Council Chairman Kwame Brown commandeered Suderman’s voice recorder in order to mockingly wonder why the media was asking him why he was so fond of Barry.

The column raises a very good question, even though its unanswerable at this point in time: does Brown possess the considerable panache which is required to manage Barry as his predecessor Vince Gray did? Only time will tell.