"John McCaslin knows everything you always wanted to know about Washington but were afraid to ask." So observes George Stephanopoulos, former senior advisor to President Clinton and host of ABC's This Week.

Indeed, for almost two decades the nationally-syndicated columnist, a former White House correspondent, has penned the award-winning "Inside the Beltway" column for The Washington Times, Los Angeles Times Syndicate and Chicago's Tribune Media Services, treating readers to a unique cornucopia of anecdotes culled from Washington's corridors of power.

The columnist's take on politics range from insightful and humorous to outlandish and outrageous, causing William F. Buckley's National Review to proclaim McCaslin "national ombudsman" for his knack of uncovering political shenanigans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

ABC newsman Sam Donaldson considers the columnist "a great storyteller, regardless of whether you are a Democrat or a Republican." Which explains why he turned to McCaslin, a former news broadcaster, as a substitute host for his radio show, as have major talkers Rush Limbaugh, Mary Matalin, Oliver North and Michael Reagan.

A past conference chairman for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, McCaslin has appeared regularly on MSNBC's Hardball, the Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, and even VH1.

He is the author of 2004's Inside the Beltway: Offbeat Stories, Scoops and Shenanigans From Around the Nation's Capital, and a contributing author to the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. His latest book, Weed Man: The Remarkable Journey of Jimmy Divine, was published in May 2009.

He spends his spare time traversing the planet as a well-published travel writer.