WTOP’s Mark Plotkin

The Post’s Erik Wemple’s got the scoop that after nearly a decade of political commentary and advocacy for D.C. voting rights and statehood, Mark Plotkin has left WTOP. Wemple reports:

WTOP news honcho Jim Farley confirms today that famed local radio personality Mark Plotkin is done at the local radio powerhouse. “We’ve parted ways,” says Farley. Was the parting at the initiative of WTOP? ”Yes,” says Farley. “He’s no longer with us.”

There don’t seem to be many details yet, but with Plotkin’s departure, the radio station will have a hole to fill in its schedule tomorrow, as the host’s weekly politics discussion is no more.

Plotkin made something of a fuss on Twitter earlier this week over the fact that Mayor Vince Gray was not invited by the White House to attend President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night. (The mayor was invited to attend by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton but declined so he could instead attend his girlfriend Linda Greene’s birthday party.) The comment was part of his longstanding and well-known advocacy for D.C. voting rights and statehood; he regularly used his perch at the radio station to poke at elected officials for perceived and real slights against the District. (In 2007, Plotkin was booted from the White House when he asked First Lady Laura Bush a D.C. voting rights-related question that was perceived as a little too much.)

Plotkin was also known as a fervent suporter of George Washington University sports (he’s an alumnus) and a (very) late adopter of just about anything technological. He rarely took calls not placed to a landline, and only recently accepted a Twitter account under duress.

Update: NewsChannel 8 anchor Bruce DePuyt writes on TBD that Plotkin told him “things happen” when reached by phone after Wemple broke the news. DePuyt wrote that he bumped into Plotkin at last night’s Wizards game, but that “there was no indication last night that anything was amiss.”