Having reached a certain level of intimacy with a friend, it is often fun to ask them who they would choose, either from history or current times, as dinner companions. Camille Paglia – the “post-feminist” feminist – would certainly be on my short list. Although it’s also true that I’d probably have to look up ways of unabashedly using words like “cthonic” in a sentence.
Given this Salon op-ed, it’s probably safe to say that Hillary Clinton might choose otherwise.
Hillary… with her thin, spotty record, tangled psychological baggage, and maundering blowhard of a husband, is also a mighty big roll of the dice. She is a brittle, relentless manipulator with few stable core values who shuffles through useful personalities like a card shark (“Cue the tears!”). Forget all her little gold crosses: Hillary’s real god is political expediency. Do Americans truly want this hard-bitten Machiavellian back in the White House? Day one will just be more of the same.
Ouch.
Do you remember Steve Allen’s PBS show Meeting Of Minds? He’d gather around the table, for different shows, the likes of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, Marie Antoinette, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Paine, Francis Bacon, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire and Charles Darwin. Fascinating.
One of my interview questions for my current job was: “If you could invite any five people from any time period in American History to dinner and a conversation; who would they be?”
That was rather unexpected, but an interesting conversation ensued. So much for the interview…
My choices:
George Washington, Ben Frankling, Ronald Reagan, George Patton, and Erwin Ronmmel. I know Rommel was not American, but he was a part of our history.
Pretty off the wall for a job interview.
I have two daughters. Arguments like those so artfully set forth in your quote from the Salon piece get absolutely no traction with them. I fear the worst in Nov.
Bear in mind that the first president elected after women got the vote was Warren G. Harding – so bad they had to, on his death, quickly rename my high school University High School immediately after it was built (it was close to the brand new UCLA ‘way out in the then boonies ). Which explained why all the cast iron railings at the school featured big H’s instead of big U’s.
As for who I’d invite to dinner that would be Snoop Dogg, preferably in his Coup de Snoop. He’s got some ’splainin to do, IMHO. Of course Clarence Thomas would have to come too for a little balance. He would have no explaining to do – none whatsoever. I probably would, though.
“Sincerity huh?… Yeah, I can fake that!”
Ahh, Tis the season for political lambastions! Looking forward to the next 1o months of exceptionally gooey mud slinging!
My dinner companion would have to have been Bob Hope! Would have at least been entertaining!
Yeah, ouch!
Nmitz, Mitscher, Halsey, Spruance and Burke. Why? Would love to get their take on the course of the Navy these past 50-odd years…and there’s a few questions from 60-some odd years ago as well we’d like to put forth. Strictly non-attributional, of course
- SJS
I wish Paglia had left out the first part of the screed in which she analyzes Clinton’s childhood. Her analysis could well be right, but it didn’t help her argument. Other than that, she was right on target.
Reading all of the intelligent thoughts above, it occurred to me that we might want to ask ourselves why ’tis nobler for women to support Hillary than for men to support George W. Bush.
As for dinner guests, the only people who would put up with our house at this moment are the very people one wouldn’t want to invite for dinner. However, it would be very nice to go out for munchies at some really cool relaxed place with … well, today it’d be Forest Whitaker, Eleanor Roosevelt, and George Kennan. Maybe on a 40′ yawl moving in a gentle breeze around St. Kitts.
At the start of Rush today they had a parody song where Bill Clinton singing in the style of Roy Orbison was sing “crying”, with back up snippets of the Hillary crying even the other day in the background. A real hoot.
God I wished I’d said that – brilliant!
I was a bit dissapointed that she didn’t tell us how she really felt about Hillary.
As for dinner guests, I’d go along with SJS’s choices. ‘cept, I’d like to know what they thought about MacArthur.
Ahh … the dinner guest thing. Aside from you Lex, who are first on my list, Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Sowell, James Taranto, bellowing George Patton [just to stir things up further] and Brit Hume, a smart prescient man with a sense of humor. Darn — I forgot Bull Halsey.
Marianne Matthews
oh oh … I forgot another three: John “40 second” Boyd, Winston Churchill and Douglas Bader. Okay-okay. I’ll stop now. But what fun it would be, for me and my tape recorder.
Marianne Matthews
I think an interesting group of guests for me would include Isaac Newton, Carl Gauss, James Maxwell, Werner Heisenberg, and Albert Einstein.
I’d have a few questions for them. I bet it would be a contentious evening to. The place would need a lot of writing surfaces I’m thinking.
As for dinner guests, I’d go along with SJS’s choices. ‘cept, I’d like to know what they thought about MacArthur.
…and hence the non-attribution
- SJS
Camille: A lady with fire in her belly.
As for Hillary: Groucho Mark said, “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing….If you can fake that, you’ve got it made”.
Oh, I forgot……Dinner guests:
Groucho Marx, W.C.Fields, Red Skelton, Fred Allen and jack Benny.
WTF, I wanna have a good time….
SJS, You should read the section on McArthur in Halberstam’s book. He devotes the whole first 4 chapters to explaining him AND his mother.
Dinner guests? Suzanne Pleshette, Dame Maggie Thatcher, Dorothy Parker, Kenny Roberts (world 500cc road racing champion from the early 80s), Steve Yzerman (former captain of the Deetroit Red Wings), and Bob Dylan.
She deserves every word of that piece.
Wow, Camille Paglia. A name I haven’t heard in a long while. Always bizarre and refreshing.
Wow and ouch is right. Camille has her pegged. I also agree with her as I have been saying for the past 4 years- don’t believe she is electable even with the most vapid of voters out there.
A lot of great people named as would be guests.
I would likely come up with a new set of five almost daily.
I’m surprised nobody named Theodore Roosevelt. He’d be my #1 pick.
Please read Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene and then book a reservation to the Rainbow Room and I will be there.
Holy—, Lex!
Is that really CP?
Thomas Jefferson, Leonardo DaVinci, Alexander the Great, Theodore Rooseveldt…. They get one table.
My wife and I will enjoy our meal at another. Dang it, folks, what do you want to do — argue or eat?
– Max
Carpe dinner party. Who would you invite now? I’ve got an idle plan to do something similar in about ten years, or the next time I’m in NYC with enough warning, gathering every interesting dinner partner I know in town for a long and pleasant evening in some place like the Russian Tea Room until the cops come.
Best job I ever had on shore involved putting on a suit and occasionally playing hooky just to hear people talk about things in small venues. Wonderful learning experience, and in DC where we were, we were not wanting for interesting subjects and speakers.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Emerson Fittipaldi, Carroll Shelby, Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, Liam Neeson, Bette Davis, Sting, Freddie Mercury
George Washington- to discuss the New Jersey campaign of 1776-77 and later how he developed his vision of what the Presidency should be. Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Ronald Reagan, Therese of Liseux, Dwight Eisenhower on Coalition Warfare from ‘42 to VE Day.
Ditto GEO6, and I’d find another chair for Paul of Tarsus.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.