Perhaps the note should not have surprised me, coming as it does
from the woman who advocates the “‘we’re all in it together’
society” over its “on your own” counterpart, but until an email
arrived yesterday from Hillary Clinton with the subject line
Dinner Under the Stars I failed to realize how deeply she
believed it — or, for that matter, that this ethos extended to
dinner. Under the stars, no less! Below I reproduce her missive and
the wide range of emotions I experienced reading it:
Dear Shawn,
Summer is a time for simple pleasures: family vacations,
baseball games, and dinner out under the stars. At least it is if
you aren’t running for president!
Take that Obama! I bet the Moonlighting Mayor of Purple America
wished he had time for dinner and a game of catch out on
that international
pre-victory
lap last week. What a sucker! Having Bill
throw this thing for you was a smart move,
Hill.
It sure is nice having a little more time on my
hands, and I’d love to spend some of it with you. Would you like to
join me for dinner?
Seriously? That would be
amazing! I promise to stay out of
the squabbles between you and Bill over who is the evening’s
Designated Grillmaster. (You in your
sassy apron, Bill brazenly donning an
old
favorite rather than the classier alternative you
chose for him.) I’ll just chill by the pool with
Chelsea. Get the inside dope on what it was like to go on
humiliating
pseudo-dates with super(dork)delegates while
most certainly
not being
pimped out. Fair warning, though: I’m a sissy
teetotaler, so I’ll probably bug out before the
shots begin to rest up for the inevitable pig
wrasslin’, square dancin’ and cow tippin’ denouement typical of
gatherings where the vanguard lets its hair down with the
not-bitter proletariat — or, as Obama prefers,
the
Annie Oakley-wing of the Democratic Party.
During the campaign, I had the chance a few times
to grab meals with supporters, but they were always rushed thanks
to the frenetic pace of the campaign. This is my first chance to
sit down and spend some real one-on-one time with
you.
Like I said, sounds great. I’m going through my closet looking for
pastels right now. And, to be fair, I hardly made time for you,
either. In my defense, you recall
John Edwards — A.K.A. Mr. Two Americas; A.K.A. Johnny
The NOT Historic Choice; A.K.A. Angry McWhitebread — was in the
race for a spell, right? Well, he and the Brothers Goof,
Chris
Dodd and
Joe
Biden, kept me fairly busy. Still, you deserved better.
So yes, as you said in your ultra-hip online campaign kick off announcement, “let’s talk. Let’s chat.
Let’s start a dialogue about your ideas and mine.” Maybe it’s just
wistful me being sentimental here, but you really out Oprah-ed
Oprah on that one — and she retaliated. Who won the (ratings, not Iraq) war though, Hill?
Cripes! Ellen DeGeneres should be paying your outstanding
debt!
Anyway…
My staff has been calling this my “retirement
dinner”…
(GASP!)
…not because I’m retiring, of
course…
(SIGH) Don’t panic me like that, Hill. The ol’ ticker can’t take
it.
…but because we’re working on retiring the debt
we owe to small vendors all over the country.
Huh? This dinner isn’t just about the two of us enjoying simple
pleasures under the stars?
And everyone who acts today will have the chance to
join me — along with a guest — for a dinner to talk about
whatever you’d like.
I’d like to talk about how someone I trust — name rhymes with
“Billary” — just made me feel like I’ve been tricked into
attending an Amway meeting.
Let’s go to dinner! Contribute now, and you and I
could be enjoying a summer dinner together soon!
Contribute?
Could BE? Look, Hill, it’s not that I don’t
trust you. Really. But I was just taught a very important lesson in
not paying up front by the un-handyman I hired to put shelves in my
closet this week. The moment I doled out the cash he forgot all his
wonderful promises. Now my closet looks like an IKEA box had a
miscarriage in it and my wife thinks I’m a gullible fool. No, I
need something more definitive to close the deal.
Now, of course, I’d love to sit here and type, “Let’s just get everybody
together. Let’s get unified. The sky will open. The lights will
come down. Celestial choruses will be singing and everyone will
know we should do the right thing and the world will be
perfect.”
Maybe I’ve just lived a little too long, but I have no illusions
about how hard it is going to be to get you to commit to dinner
(under the stars) once I’ve sent you a contribution — cash that
won’t even go to exposing Obama for the sleep-through-the-3
a.m.-phone-calls-lightweight he is, I might add.
Thank you so much for all your wonderful
support.
Please, Hill, at least tell me a few sweet little lies to make the
charade pass less painfully. Tell me we’ll dine the night after
next under a paradisiacal canopy of
sniper fire as we sort out this crazy world
together until the dawn arrives. Can you do that for me,
Hillary?
All the best,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
This is really going to happen? I pull out my credit card — not in
that icky Eliot Spitzer way — and we’ll be together, right?
Hillary? Hillary!
