Gene Norman Weingarten (born October 2, 1951) is an American journalist, and former syndicated humor columnist for The Washington Post. He is the only two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. Weingarten is known for both his serious and humorous work. Through September 2021, Weingarten's column, "Below the Beltway," was published weekly in The Washington Post magazine and syndicated nationally by The Washington Post Writers Group, which also syndicates Barney & Clyde, a comic strip he co-authors with his son, Dan Weingarten, with illustrations by David Clark. Early life and education Gene Norman Weingarten was born on October 2, 1951, in New York City. He grew up in the southwest Bronx, the son of an accountant who worked as an Internal Revenue Service agent and a schoolteacher. In 1968, Weingarten graduated from The Bronx High School of Science and attended New York University, where he started as a pre-med student but ended up majoring in psychology. He was editor of the NYU daily student newspaper, The Heights Daily News. Weingarten left college three credits short of a degree. Career In 1972, while still in college, Weingarten's story about gangs in the South Bronx was published as a cover story in New York Magazine. Weingarten's first newspaper job was with the Albany, New York, Knickerbocker News, an afternoon daily. In 1977, he went to work at the Detroit Free Press. Weingarten then moved back to New York City to work at The National Law Journal. From 1981 to 1990, Weingarten was editor of the Miami Herald Sunday magazine, Tropic. In 1984, he hired Dave Barry, giving one of America's best-known humor columnists his big break. Tropic won two Pulitzer Prizes, including Barry's, during Weingarten's tenure. In 1984 he created the Herald Hunt, along with Barry and his current editor at the Washington Post, Tom Shroder, whom he refers to frequently in his online chats as "Tom the Butcher". The Washington Post In 1990, Weingarten was hired by The Washington Post. Weingarten wrote "Below the Beltway," a weekly humor column for The Washington Post that was nationally syndicated. Illustrator Eric Shansby contributed drawings to the column, which has been a long-term collaboration over 10 years. Weingarten created and, until 2003, edited The Style Invitational humor contest for The Washington Post. As part of the contest, he often hid his connection to the Invitational, using the pseudonym "The Czar." However, Weingarten