Indian-American Romance, And A Backstage Marriage Proposal, At Yesterday’s State Dinner
Here’s a quick tale of political romance — and a backstage marriage proposal — to lift your holiday spirits.
I’m told that senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett quietly helped a fellow aide, White House online guru Jesse Lee, hatch a plan to propose to his Indian-American girlfriend at the glitzy state dinner festivities yesterday.
But, as so much else does in the White House, the plans went awry due to unforseen events and had to be hastily reworked on the spot.
When the state dinner honoring the prime minister of India was first announced, Lee quietly approached Jarrett and asked for her help in laying a plan to propose to his girlfriend at the dinner. The venue was particularly meaningful because Lee’s girlfriend, Nita Chaudhary, a top official at MoveOn, is from an esteemed Indian family that includes the former foreign secretary of India.
Jarrett promised to ensure that the couple were seated near each other, and at an appropriate location, at one of the event’s planned outdoor ceremonies yesterday. Because of rain, however, the outdoor event was abruptly cancelled and moved into the White House East Room.
As the crowd was exiting the event, Jesse grabbed Nita and slipped her into the Diplomatic Room, where he popped the proposal. She said Yes — and there was no equivocating or hedging, informed sources say.
As perhaps befits a D.C. romance, it required some last-minute crisis management to come together — and the couple will now be settling down with their pug, Miles.
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Best wishes to the lovers.
THE INDIAN TO HIS LOVE
by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.
Here we will moor our lonely ship
And wander ever with woven hands,
Murmuring softly lip to lip,
Along the grass, along the sands,
Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:
How we alone of mortals are
Hid under quiet boughs apart,
While our love grows an Indian star,
A meteor of the burning heart,
One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart,
The heavy boughs, the burnished dove
That moans and sighs a hundred days:
How when we die our shades will rove,
When eve has hushed the feathered ways,
With vapoury footsole by the water’s drowsy blaze.
Good for them. I hope everything works out.
And in other news … .. ….. .. .. …
Washington Monthly has a pretty good summary of stimulus results from various economists.
I wonder at what point the administration will come out strong pointing to the effects of the stimulus. I suppose they are just letting the opposition let off steam. No use trying to have a conversation with an opponent that is yelling at the tops of their lungs at anything that moves.
Lovely story. Our first lady looked stunning last night and the menu looked delicious. I am sure it was a great evening for everyone.
That’s a great little story.
Thanks for sharing Greg
Greg has a mushy side. What a lib!
Awwww. Thanks Greg. I would love to see you do a post on the graphs about the stimulus mentioned above.
Awwwwww – that’s sweet, greg. Thanks.
MikefromArlington – Whoa Nelly!
Somebody go ask Arianna if she’s seen those graphs and how she’s gonna fade them.
And a third awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Blessings on both of their heads!
On another note, Steve Benen has an interesting bit on why Lieberman’s acting the way he is over on Washington Monthly (hopeless at html links–sorry). M from A’s link will probably help get you over there.
Never mind – she’s got half the front page taken up with a lede about Tom Daschle being a crook.
Good economic news is way down the page as a caption, not a lede.
She’s on a one woman jihad to destroy the Democratic Party, swear to god.
“Because he’s bitter.”
That’s what I’ve been saying about Lieberman forever.
Here’s the Benen piece from WashMonthly: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
Heck, Arianna barely even links to Roubini articles any longer because some of them have been favorable to this administrations decisions and those in it.
She’s beyond help. I’m still convinced she’s a trojan horse into the Democratic party and is now trying to help Republicans by trying to crush any enthusiasm Democrats may still have left in them. Enthusiasm about a party’s message is all getting people out to the polls is about. You crush that, well, you get the picture.
Like I commented in that article.
I would like to see a fifth line. It could forecast what would have happened if we had a Govn’t spending freeze like Republicans suggested. Splash that result all over the news to make America realize just how insane the current Republican mentality is.
Then, do another line that would predict of all the social nets weren’t in place, food stamps, unemployment, social security, medicare/medicaid, etc and the Republican spending freeze took place. Plot that line out to show what would happen in a modern day conservative utopia.
“. It could forecast what would have happened if we had a Govn’t spending freeze like Republicans suggested. Splash that result all over the news to make America realize just how insane the current Republican mentality is.”
O my god yes. I was so scared McCain might pull it off and freeze spending. O my god = talk about freefall.
Thanks, Tena!
What do you do with a problem like Arianna? Other than ignore her? As Dr Phil would say, what’s her currency? Attention seems like the obvious one, but is there another?
Look at this s*h*i*t from Steve Clemons:
“On the journalistic front, Tom Friedman of the New York Times will be there — and so too will Fareed Zakaria whose star continues to climb. Zakaria has largely been quite positive about the presidency of Barack Obama and not taken any substantial jabs at the White House — but I suspect that after an invite like this one, he’ll have to balance out his hyper-access with some substantial critique of the limited results of the Obama team’s foreign policy accomplishments.”
So if someone isn’t sufficiently anti-Obama, Clemons presumably wants him to go out of his way to find something to criticize.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/who-is-hot-and-who-was-bl_b_369955.html
Steve Benen points to a NYTimes report that shows a series of graphs by professional economists that illustrate how much the stimulus has helped.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_11/021170.php
Hi News Reference. We were just talking about that graph. Awesome, ain’t it.
Ok Tena here is my Thanksgiving gift to you. We are probably in agreement about Afghanistan..at any rate as opposed as I am..I am still willing to give the Pres a couple of years to work things out.
The great Thanksgiving News…we may be a lifetime away from the midterms…but can you feel how thin the ice is growing under the Rethugs…those graphs look great…there WILL be some HCR bill..perhaps not all that we want..but there will be something strong enough to put the rethugs back in their place…now if there is any..and I mean any job growth by the mid terms…what will the party of no have to run on…seriously they’ve never been good at running on anything positive…they are devoid of any positive ideas other than in their minds cutting taxes…if it’s not total gloom and doom by the midterms…where will they be? With U.S. reputation soaring around the World once more…graphs and other evidence that Obama helped avert the 2nd Great Republican Depression…HCR…I suspect the truly pragmatic rethugs left…perhaps Cantor…are there any others lol..must be pooping their pants right now in fear.
Happy Thanksgiving again, rukidding! That was a very sweet gift.
Tena, your criticisms of Arianna may irritate me enough to defend her!-(
I’d much prefer to spend my time playing with the actual right wingers.
It’s much more fun.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Monty+Python+argument
News Ref – I’m sorry about that, but I’m kind of nonplussed at to what to do about it.
Are you asking me not to criticize her? I kind of chafe at prior restraints on things, myself.
I am sorry to irritate you.
The State Dinner proposal…that’s a new one!
Tena, love your voice, but feel much the same way about Obama:
“I’m kind of nonplussed at to what to do about” Obama’s embrace of a long string of right wing policies.
Obama doesn’t get any credit from the right-wing or the corporate-media for his embrace of right wing policies AND he alienates the left.
But beyond the political calculations: Obama’s embrace of right wing policies is bad for the country.
“I kind of chafe at prior restraints on” criticizing Obama’s embrace of right wing positions but I’m much more amused and engaged by going after Obama’s far right critics.
I don’t believe that ignoring right wing trolls these last 30-40 years has been effective.
I also don’t believe that those that criticize left-wingers making legitimate complaints have done the country much good either.
And yes, I understand that sometimes left-wing critics can go too far, the Tea Baggers to me are the Naderites of 2000: Purists that hurt their own objectives.
But Arianna is NOT that. And if there were any time to criticize Obama it’s NOW, especially on his offensive embrace of right wing economic frauds.
But like I said, I’d rather amuse myself dismantling the right wing trolls.
Which beach city in India has the best beach hotels? On first thought you might say Goa, but thinking more, Kerla might be the vhosen one.
Anyway, you have a fascinating perspective on this this particular topic. I’d love it if you updated this blog regularly! Also, can your readers to send in questions they would like to personally know more about? Right now I have a question on this issue because I am going through a difficult situation with a girl I like and I am not sure how to move forward. I’d really like to ask for your comments…or perhaps someone can suggest a book that I ought to read?