Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, The Examiner
2007-04-10 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics in the beltway each weekday. Email them at yan@dcexaminer.com .

Christopher Hitchens reignites exclusive Vanity Fair party

One of Christopher Hitchens’ favorite party moments at his Kalorama house occurred years back, when Barbra Streisand caught on fire and author Christopher Buckley extinguished the flames.

“That was a great moment in my life,” Hitchens told Yeas & Nays.

Well, the good times are here again, as Hitchens and his wife, Carol Blue, are bringing back what has historically been one of the most exclusive parties following the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner: The Vanity Fair After-Party.

“[Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief] Graydon Carter has decided that he wants to revive it,” said Hitchens, who himself is a regular columnist for the magazine. Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum and his wife, Dee Dee Myers, (a former press secretary in the Clinton White House) also are hosting.

Once considered the pre-eminent after-party, the Vanity Fair bash bid farewell after 1999, with the conventional wisdom being that it simply became too much of a fuss. Bloomberg’s after-parties became the successor, although in Hitchens’ words, that annual soiree “has become rather mediocre and tacky.”

The prolific man of letters also confessed to having not attended the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in many years.

“I find it pretty tedious,” Hitchens said. “The food is uniformly lousy, the comedian is not great and I hate sitting through the awards. I don’t like seeing the press fawning on the president and I don’t like seeing the president fawn over the press.”

The Vanity Fair party at the Hitchens/Blue house on April 21 will certainly be a hot ticket since his best estimate is that it can hold only 200 people (far fewer than the Bloomberg Party at the Costa Rican Embassy, the Capitol File magazine party at the Colombian ambassador’s residence and the Reuters party at the Four Seasons Terrace).

No word yet on which VIPs will be in attendance, but Hitchens says that he believes Jane Fonda will be there, and he’s asked Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn to attend also. Vanity Fair is handling the invitations and that’s perfectly fine by him.

“If you give a party, you make more enemies than friends,” he said.

On purpose or not, first lady gives a nod to No. 42

During Monday’s annual White House Easter Egg Roll, first lady Laura Bush read the popular children’s book “Duck for President” to a throng of children and parents surrounding her on the South Lawn. The book tells the story of a duck named — you guessed it — “Duck,” who gets elected president of the United States.

But it was this specific passage that caused a few people to chuckle (at least the adults who remember the 1992 presidential campaign) as Laura read it aloud.

“That night, Duck and his staff started working on posters for the presidential election. Duck left his staff in charge and hit the campaign trail. He kissed babies in local diners. He rode in parades. He gave speeches that only other ducks could understand. He even played the saxophone on late-night television.”

Much to her credit, the first lady didn’t flinch as she read over that obvious allusion to former President Bill Clinton’s sax-playing appearance on the “Arsenio Hall Show” as he ran for president in 1992.

Other Bushies who took a turn reading to the children Monday:

» Lynne Cheney, “America: A Patriotic Primer,” by Lynne Cheney

» Carlos Gutierrez, “Duck on a Bike,” by David Shannon

» Michael Leavitt w/Mrs. Leavitt, “Faux Paw’s Adventures in the Internet: Keeping Children Safe Online,” by Jacalyn Leavitt

» Dirk Kempthorne, “Officer Buckle and Gloria,” by Peggy Rathmann

» Josh Bolten, “Arthur Meets the President,” by Marc Brown

» Alphonso Jackson, “Green Eggs and Ham,” by Dr. Seuss

» Margaret Spellings, “Teacher’s Pets,” by Dayle Ann Dodds

» Henry Paulson w/ Mrs. Paulson, “When Agnes Caws,” by Candace Fleming.

Sweeney: 911 call ‘simply what happens sometimes in families’

Ex-Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., said he isn’t sure how a 911 call placed by his wife in 2005 became public last year, but on Monday, he brushed off her charges against him at the time as “simply what happens sometimes in families.”

Sweeney’s wife, Gayle, called 911 late at night in December 2005 claiming that the congressman was “knocking her around the house.”

The police report stated that she had scratches on her face and that she spent the night at a friend’s house.

Coverage of the incident might have contributed to Sweeney’s loss to Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand last fall.

Sweeney was interviewed Monday on WROW in New York, which was immediately reported by the New York Observer’s “Politicker” blog.

Sweeney said the incident and the phone call were “simply what happens sometimes in families.”

“We didn’t deny that a call was made,” he said. “We didn’t deny there had been problems in my family at that particular time.”

No Mitt at the movies

When Academy Award winner Jon Voight hosts “a very special private screening” of Christopher Cain’s new film, “September Dawn,” today at the Motion Picture Association of America’s Eye Street movie theater, you might see some VIPs in the audience, but you won’t see anyone from the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.

The fictional love story in “September Dawn” (which also features Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, Terrence Stamp and Dean Cain) is set against the nonfictional historical tragedy of the slaughter of 120 innocent pioneers by zealous Mormons in 1857.

Does the release of this movie, which already is getting favorable reviews from movie critics, spell trouble for Romney, who is Mormon? After all, the Mormons involved in this particular historical incident in Utah don’t exactly come out looking favorably.

“We reached out to the Romney campaign,” said one source involved with the film. “But up to now, they haven’t seen it due to scheduling conflicts. We would certainly make special arrangements for them to see the movie at any time that is convenient for them.”