Posted on 01/22/2004 5:59:30 AM PST by mountaineer
Lauren Hutton and Georgette Mosbacher squared off in a verbal claw-fest Tuesday night at the Sony Club, significantly upping the entertainment value of a State of the Union-watching party hosted by Atlantic Monthly magazine.
"Bush is responsible for a trillion-dollar deficit," declared the gap-toothed fashion icon, rising from her seat to respond to Mosbacher's lonely defense of President Bush amid a liberal-leaning crowd that included Walter and Betsy Cronkite, Pete Peterson, David Dinkins, Tina Brown and Harry Evans, former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and Moby.
"I guess you can't read, or something," Hutton jabbed. "Because I can - and I'm a model, for God's sake!"
At which the flame-haired Mosbacher went ballistic.
"Don't you be personally insulting!" she fired back. "You can make your points, but I resent your personal insults."
"How's that insulting?" the 60-year-old Hutton demanded.
"It's insulting to you!" replied the 57-year-old ex-wife of former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher.
"Ohhhh, catfight!" one of my tablemates exclaimed.
"I felt like I was in the lion's den," Mosbacher told me yesterday.
The trouble started when "the cream of Manhattan society" and "godless Manhattanites" - as moderator James Fallows (perhaps ironically) addressed the group - were invited to critique Bush's speech after watching it, over a sumptuous sushi-laced dinner, on flat-screen televisions on the 35th floor of the Sony Building.
Cronkite, the venerable former CBS anchorman, launched his assessment by noting portentously: "I have watched a great many of these speeches in my life, and I would say that President Bush's is unique in American history."
The majestic-voiced Cronkite looked grave as he continued: "Never before has a President of the United States taken such a strong stand - as he did tonight - against gonorrhea!"
It was a laugh line, of course, and the room erupted in laughter.
Before the speech, guests were encouraged to use personal electronic devices at each place setting to punch in answers to various questions. Almost 77% said they will support a Democrat for President this year, and 72% reported that they attend "zero" religious services.
During Bush's speech, Moby strolled up to one of the screens, tuned to CNN and stuck a piece of dark tape over the letter "V" in "LIVE." Now it read "LIE," prompting one guest to quip: "I didn't know that Moby cared so much about the Long Island Expressway!"
He doesn't. "We all have 'beaten-wife syndrome,' where we've been lied to so often," he told fellow diner Curtis Ellis of AP Radio. "George Bush is like a drunken, unfaithful spouse who's gone out and cheated on us so many times that at this point we just accept it....He looks like the belligerent guy in the bar who tries to pick a fight with you."
I thought that was Eminem.
Talk about a House of cards. The best security in the country couldn't keep wiseacres out of President Bush's State of the Union Address Tuesday. Comic Dennis Miller was up in the visitors gallery shooting verbal spitballs at lawmakers waiting for Bush to arrive.
Miller - who, we hear, had had a private meeting with Vice President Cheney earlier - couldn't resist remarking on House Speaker Dennis Hastert's waistline. "Looks like Hastert had his stomach stapled," Miller joked.
When he spotted Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) scribbling on a pile of papers, Miller quipped, "He's probably writing to Penthouse Forum ... 'Jed, the stable boy, walked into the room...'"
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) drew a dart for her white-trimmed crimson dress.
"Who's Santa's little helper?" Miller wondered aloud.
But Miller, whose politics have veered significantly to the right, clammed up when Bush ascended to the dais. "He was incredibly respectful during the whole thing," says our spy. The neo-neo-conservative, who's due to interview Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on his new CNBC show next week, seemed "almost giddy" over Bush's tough talk about Iraq and the Patriot Act.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) found Bush's speech laughable in its own right. One source spotted her snickering when Bush called for a curb on athletes' use of performance-enhancing drugs. "Now if he had mentioned testosterone, that would have been funny," Clinton told colleagues after the speech. She perfected her line later when she told reporters Bush's address was "partisanship on steroids." [That Hilly, what a laugh riot]
Around the country, other wags took the speech as a call to begin bombing - or, rather, getting bombed. Last year when Bush spoke to Congress, University of Pennsylvania law student Marc Melzer and management consultant Howard Deutsch created a Web site, drinkinggame.us, where they invited Americans to join them in raising a glass whenever Dubya mispronounced a word or warned against messin' with Texas.
Bush's four uses of "nukular" required participants to take four swigs of their cocktail. Bush's promise - made three times - that he would leave "no child behind" required three more swigs. Five mentions of "Saddam" also left revelers unconcerned about whether they had a prescription drug benefit.
"It was pretty crazy," Melzer, who registered over 231,000 hits on the site, told us. "People were true to the rules and drank a lot."
"We all have 'beaten-wife syndrome,' where we've been lied to so often by Bill and Hillary Clintoon and the rest of the DUMBOCRATS," he told fellow diner Curtis Ellis of AP Radio.
I don't remember which lame Democrat candidate Moby supports. Gee, I hope it isn't the belligerent Howie Dean!
She can't even grasp something as basic as the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit.
Two things that are really sad:
The "Sony building" Was once the world headquarters of AT&T
You once could get e very good view of the WTC from up there.
If we cannot oust this hideous parody of an aristocracy it is over.
I didn't read this when I replied the first time. Why did old crusty say that? Is she using testosterone??? Makes me wonder..... HMMMMMMMM
Exactly, how do they "know" there were no WMD in Iraq? It would be simple for him to bury them or ship them to Syria and they "know" there were no WMD to make W a liar. These people must be beaten just like any other terrorist organization.
How come these people are for liberating oppressed people only when a Rat is President?? FAct is Republicans have freed nearly as many people as were murdered by Communism!
Pray for W and Our Brave Troops
Pretty arrogant for someone whose best role was Charlotte Taylor Wilson in "Zorro, the Gay Blade."
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