Politics and Prose Introduces New Owners

Washington, D.C.’s iconic Politics and Prose Bookstore will soon have new owners.

After considering offers from a number of interested parties, Barbara Meade and David Cohen, husband of the late Carla Cohen, have chosen to sell the store to former Washington Post journalists Bradley Graham and his wife, Lissa Muscatine.  The deal is expected to close in approximately 45 days, according to a report in the March 28 edition of the Washington Post.

Although terms of the sale were not made public, the Post noted that “a person with knowledge of the negotiations said that the purchase price was about $2 million.”

Meade and Cohen said that they carefully chose the store’s new owners because they wanted to ensure that Politics and Prose’s legacy as a community gathering place for ideas and civic discourse would continue. “Graham and Muscatine have the passion and wisdom to further strengthen Politics and Prose as a community institution that disseminates ideas and stands as a respected and revered public space,” Meade and Cohen said in a statement. “We are confident that they have the wherewithal and vision to sustain Politics and Prose for many years.”

Graham’s career at the Post included turns as a business reporter, foreign correspondent, editor, and Pentagon correspondent. He is the author of two books and is a graduate of Yale and Stanford Business School.

Muscatine, a graduate of Harvard and a Rhodes scholar, most recently served as a senior advisor  and director of speech writing for the State Department. She worked at the Post for 12 years as a reporter and editor. After leaving the paper in the early 1990s, she became a White House speech writer during the Clinton administration and was a collaborator on Hillary Clinton’s memoir Living History.

“We’re very grateful for this opportunity, which we consider both a privilege and a responsibility,” Graham and Muscatine said in statement posted on the Politics and Prose website. “We will do everything we can to preserve P&P’s special culture and traditions, while also looking for new ways to ensure that this great store remains relevant, influential, and technologically up-to-date.”

The Post reported that Graham and Muscatine would work full time in the store and plan to use their own money to expand the business.