High life
Crisp evisceration
Taki
ToWashington DC the nation's capital for a grand dinner honouring Barbara Olson, the feisty, blonde superstar television pundit, who died on 11 September when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, and wife of the solicitor general Ted Olson. As some of you may have read, Barbara calmly rang her husband and described what was going on. Barbara rose to prominence fighting the culture of dishonesty, deceit and lying that the Clinton gang brought to Washington in 1993. Nightly television appearances aside, she wrote a book about Hillary Clinton, Hell to Pay, a precise portrait of the ugly and insidious Lady Macbeth, which became a bestseller. The Final Days, her last book, and one which was published posthumously two weeks ago, now stands at number two in the New York Times bestseller list, and will inevitably rise to numero uno.
Needless to say, I read it in one sitting. It is a short, crisp evisceration of Bonnie and Clyde as they prepared to leave the White House, taking much of the furniture with them. The greed, the pardons, the general thuggery are all there. Although the Clintons had managed to hoodwink the majority of the American people for eight long years by brilliantly using spin a la Blair, their final days gave them away. Even some of their most ardent supporters were stunned by their greed and dishonesty. Hillary's book deal, the third highest advance in history, looks like the pay-off it was. Her publisher is part of a vast conglomerate that owns television stations and film studios which have a huge stake in regulations the Senate is voting on.
Mind you, the most flagrant of all misuses of power were the pardons. Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans were associated with the murder of policemen in a 1981 armoured-car robbery. They were also associated with the bombing of the US Capitol in 1983. Both were pardoned. Hillary's slob brother charged $200,000 to Carlos Vignali, a cocaine dealer and son of a donor to the Democratic party. He also had his way. And we all know about Marc Rich. I only hope future generations read this book and see how the abuses of power by an unscrupulous couple can go unpunished once the media decide the offences are 'a vast right-wing conspiracy'. But back to the party and Washington.
I sat with my great friends Christopher and Lucy Buckley, Christo being the funniest writer in America today. Ted Olson came over for a chat and I noticed what real courage is. It's putting up a brave front but not betraying that you're putting it up. The dinner was hosted by Bob Tyrrell, of American Spectator fame, and Bob had the good sense to place HW on my table. HW is a lovely southern belle who works in the White House as counsel to President Bush. I'd met her before, but back then she was taken. She is straight out of Gone with the Wind, white skin, lovely legs and hands, wonderful southern manners and charm. In fact, she reminded me of my great love, Mary-Blair Scott, of my University of Virginia days. Mary-Blair was at Sweetbriar, a girl college near Charlottesville, where UVA is situated and where Thomas Jefferson founded and designed the most beautiful campus anywhere on earth. On our first date, the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan. I had a Mercury convertible, and put the moves on her just before curfew. I managed to kiss her, and she recoiled. 'What are you, from Paris or something ...' or words to that effect. Those were wonderfully innocent days, and wellbrought-up southern ladies were not used to things, say, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson would deem normal.
Be that as it may. After the party, I walked HW to her car, and while crossing a bridge. I did a Taki. She resisted. While she was resisting, a car with two young men drove by. Go on, old man, you can do it,' they yelled, while laughing their heads off. If you think Tony Blair's haircut and manner are ridiculous, thank God you were not driving by that bridge. Never mind.
Washington is now a city full of people lining up to have their noses swabbed to check for anthrax spores. Fear reigns. Pocket-sized QuickMasks that offer 30 minutes of air are the hottest items, along with a secret 800 number which offers information in case of an attack. Congressional lapel pins have become as rare as Jesuit priests in the Taleban high command.
Otherwise everything is hunky-dory. Except in the hottest restaurant of downtown Noo Yawk. Owned by an Englishman, Keith McNally, Pastis is in the meat district and considered the trendiest place in town. Apparently — I wasn't there — some moron went to the bathroom, and took — I presume — a rather large line of coke, which made him forget that he had laid out two lines, The next thing you know, the moon men came in, emptied the place up, and took the line back to the lab. I wonder if anyone sniffed it, after all.
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