As someone who has watched two seasons of House of Cards, I understand that much of politics is sycophantic glad-handing with the enemy next to a tray of lightly sweating cheese cubes, carefully wheedling one another over low orchestral music and the tinkle of ice cubes in Scotch glasses. If it’s going well, there’s some elbow grabbing. If it’s going really well, some literal back-patting. Everyone hates each other.
Knowing these things as I do, I have to wonder what our friend and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is doing cavorting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump? At a party hosted by Lally Weymouth, the former owner of the Washington Post and currently a senior associate editor there? I also wonder what the other dozens of journalists, employed not just by the Washington Post, but such outlets as Bloomberg and The Atlantic, are doing with this opportunity?
Who are all these rich, almost-completely white people? Here’s a breakdown:
Joel Klein: Former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; then Executive Vice President of News Corps.; now an executive at New York-based health start-up Oscar.
Alan Patricof: Investor; founder and chairman of New York Magazine; a Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton, though he often lunched with Young Jared Kushner.
Boyden Gray: Former counsel to President Bush and a main architect of the Clean Air Act; former ambassador to the E.U.
Chris Ruddy: CEO of Newsmax; Trump confidant.
Katharine Weymouth: The former publisher of the Washington Post; daughter of Lally Waymouth.
Mary Jordan: Washington Post correspondent “currently traveling America writing about the Trump era.”
Richard Cohen: Washington Post columnist.
Margaret Carlson: Bloomberg News columnist; the first female columnist at Time.
Gillian Tett: U.S. managing editor of the Financial Times.
Steve Clemons: Washington editor-at-large of The Atlantic.
Robert Hormats: Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates.
Carl Icahn: Billionaire investor.
Charles Koch: One half of the infamous Koch brothers and CEO of Koch Industries.
John Paulson: An investor and one of Trump’s top economic advisers during his campaign.
Dina Powell: The U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy to Trump, evidently hand-fed to him by Mika Brzezinski.
Richard Edelman: Founder of the PR firm Edelman Group.
Maria Bartiromo: Anchor at FOX News.
Ray Kelly: Former Commissioner of the NYPD.
Bill Bratton: Ibid.
Jeff Rosen: Legal commentator.
William Drozdiak: A non-resident senior fellow at Brookings Center of the United States and Europe; senior advisor for McLarty and Associates.
Steven Spielberg is there too, unfortunately for him.