D.C. 'Housewives' have one thing in common: lack of political clout

"I love to just make an entrance," declares one of the new "Real Housewives of D.C." on the show's debut episode, set to air Thursday.

Quick, guess which one!

Of course, that line, given what we all know, comes from Michaele Salahi -- whose uninvited "entrance" into the White House last fall threw Washington into a tizzy, raised serious questions about presidential security, caused major fallout at the Secret Service and led to the departure of the White House social secretary.

But for now, all that trouble seems so last year.

Because, judging from a sneak peek at the first episode of "Real Housewives," Michaele is the unquestioned star of the new franchise. In fact, on a show that sets out to profile well-connected players in Washington -- well, rich, beautiful, catty well-connected players in Washington -- the newly famous Salahi is perhaps the closest to a player they've got.

"The Salahis are the golden egg," said Carol Joynt, who writes a column on Washington society for the New York Social Diary. Especially because prominent Washington players wouldn't go near the show, she said.

In fact, Joynt, who interviewed the Salahis for her local cable interview show, had never heard of any of the five chosen women until Bravo started shooting the show in September, two months before the White House incident.

"If people in America think these are players in Washington, they're delusional," she said.

Cathy Merrill Williams, editor of Washingtonian magazine, agrees.

"They tried hard to get political women, to capture the politically powerful part of Washington," Williams said of the show. "Did they do it? No. Because in Washington, the currency is not money, it's not exposure. It's brains and reputation, and powerful women are very protective of their reputations. They're not going to turn their lives over to a television editing room."

So who are the other "Real Housewives?"

* Mary Schmidt Amons, a suburban mother of five. She's a granddaughter of the late TV personality Arthur Godfrey, but more interesting to viewers will probably be the biometric lock on her clothes closet -- opened only by her fingerprint -- to keep her own daughter out. "When you have a daughter who shares your same size and your same style, you have to take measures into your own hands," she explains.

* Lynda Erkiletian, who heads a D.C.-area modeling agency -- given the limited number of fashion clients in D.C., she says, her business caters to ambassadors and diplomats. Whatever that means, it should be noted that she bears more than a passing physical resemblance to LuAnn de Lesseps, the countess-turned-etiquette author-turned songstress on "Real Housewives of New York City."

* Stacie Scott Turner, a high-end real estate broker for Sotheby's, who seems the most down-to-earth of the bunch: Watch for her priceless look of horror when a tipsy Mary makes an impassioned speech about how black and white women (Stacie's the only black cast member) should share the same hair salons. Turner went to Harvard Business School, and somewhere along the way met Barack Obama long enough for a photo to be snapped. "I just knew that man was going places," she said.

* Catherine Ommanney, a British interior designer who once hit the British tabloids because of a kiss she shared with Prince Harry, and whose nickname, Cat, is apparently quite apt. Of the Salahis' polo party, she notes drily: "I was expecting something a little bigger." She expounds on her romance with her husband, political photographer Charles Ommanney, who took photos of Obama, and disses Obama for not having responded to their wedding invitation.