Dear Movoto Real Estate Web site:

I was disappointed to learn that you have ranked Washington, D.C., as the second snobbiest city in America, behind only San Francisco. As a Washington resident, I find this extremely offensive. We’re a lot snobbier than San Francisco.

I’m sure you used advanced metrics to arrive at your rankings, but believe me, statistics alone cannot adequately measure snobbery. Sure, both cities are going to rank pretty high in, say, the number of dog psychiatrists per capita or the percentage of coffeehouses that offer foam-infused espresso made from Kona beans excreted by Namibian marmosets, but I contend you have to be prepared to drill down deeper. Literally. Washington invented the term “drill down deeper,” which is part of the pretentious lingua franca of Sunday morning TV talk shows, a means of entertainment we also invented because we in Washington simply take it for granted that the entire country hungers to watch sexy, A-list D.C. celebrities like Timothy Geithner and Janet Yellen earnestly debate exogenous horizontal equity integration. (As Marilyn Monroe eclipsed Lana Turner in Hollywood, so it is with Washington heartthrobs, where Tim Geithner has become the new Alan Greenspan.)

Much has been written about lanyards, those dangling government IDs that people leave on at after-hours wine gatherings (cabernet, not Merlot) in order to enable furtive status checks. This is, indeed, a blatantly egotistical convention that is tacitly accepted by everyone because it helps fuel the universal impression that mid-level government functionaries are so vital to the operation of the government that they might have to be recalled to work at any minute. But the more important point is that we’ve actually moved past Lanyard Envy in Washington — nowadays, that sort of jejune thing is just so San Francisco.

Lanyard Envy has been surpassed by Clearance Envy, a far snobbier Freudian affliction. It reflects the competition to attain higher levels of secrecy to which one’s job makes one privy. Top Secret doesn’t cut it anymore — some mere administrative assistants have Top Secret clearance. Hell, some janitors have Top Secret clearance. (These are, however, very snobby janitors.) To be traveling with the cool kids today, you have to have TS/SCI, a classification so secret that its true meaning is said to be known only by persons with TS/SCI clearance, who, incidentally, seem to number in the tens of thousands.

Washington’s snobbery is complex and nuanced. You have no doubt heard of Over-the-Shoulder Orbital Reconnaissance, whereby in any public social setting the federal Washingtonian has one eye focused on the important person in whose orbit he is revolving, and the other scanning the azimuth, in case a person with higher gravitational pull has entered the room. When such a thing occurs, an entire hierarchy of maneuvers is deployed to diplomatically achieve escape velocity and jump orbit. (Ex.: Drain drink, look thirstily around.)

In Washington, status supplants money as the ultimate coin of the realm, meaning that there is perpetual runaway inflation on job titles, creating dozens of positions like this one, which actually exists: “secretary to the First Assistant to the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense.” In Washington, an added “principal” to one’s title is sometimes preferable to a raise, the way some Japanese companies dispense the right to wear white gloves.

Finally, there is an understood rule in Washington — the ultimate concession to snobbery — that a person is to be addressed always by the highest title he or she ever had, regardless of his actual current occupation. Henry Kissinger, for example, will always be “Mr. Secretary,” even though his last year in a Cabinet position was the year the comic strip “Cathy” debuted. The honorific-for-life rule is so necessary to maintaining the Washington narcissocracy that it is inviolable. A former United States senator will be universally addressed as “senator” even if he is, at the current time, incarcerated for operating a meth lab.

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