Women I’d Like To Have Dinner With
This weekend, watching Washington Week’s Video Podcast, I was struck by my strange post-collegiate desire to discuss news, thought, and political affairs around a roundtable.
It got me wondering, who I’d most like to sit down with to discuss today’s issues with. To be fair this is also on the heels of Gossip Girl’s “The Yale Question.” Which person, historical or contemporary, would you most like to have dinner with? My list, while unintentionally all female, is very current, it’s a list of people, not all of whom I’ve been a fan of for years, who have stood out as being interesting, diverse, and thoughtful.
Peggy Noonan
Say what you will about the former Reagan speech writer, however, Ms. Noonan has an incredible command of the English language, written and spoken. Aside from her craft, and in partial disagreement with the weekly mockery over at Wonkette, I find her Friday Wall Street Journal columns to contain fascinating insights on current events, and America more broadly. I think she asks big questions at a time when small things dominate the news cycle.
Joan Didion
The most thoughtful thing I’ve read from Jezebel in some time was this excerpt from the ‘What Happens Next?’ panel at the New York Review of Books’ 45th anniversary.
While people tossed off cheap jokes about Palin and Rove — the past eight years and McCain’s campaign were reduced to a gently farcical in-joke — Joan Didion was different. As anyone who’s seen her speak knows, she’s as physically self-contained as she is in manner: tiny, yes, but also uninterested in taking up much space with force of personality. When she speaks, it’s flat, slow, straightforward: she never seems to enjoy hearing herself speak much. Unlike the other panelists, she’d prepared a written statement. Characteristically, it was detached, even cold. She started by describing the “unexpressable uneasiness” she and some others had felt early on in the campaign. Why? “We were getting what we wanted,” she continued, meaning, a smart, qualified, decent candidate the Eastern elite could get behind. And yet the frenzy surrounding Obama made her uneasy — both the sense that he was a young person’s candidate, “a generational thing we couldn’t understand” and the unthinking embrace of “naivete transformed to hope, partisanism as consumerism.” Didion bridled at the wanton use of “transformational” and said she couldn’t count the number of times she heard the 60’s evoked “by people who apparently had no memory that the 60s” didn’t involve decking babies out in political onesies.
Didion was at pains to say that she did not think any of this was Obama’s doing, nor to his tastes. He would, she speculated “welcome healthy realism” and achievable expectations. In our frenzy, we are doing him a disservice, expecting miracles “at a time when the nation can least afford easy answers.” She recalled, the day after the election, an overexcited newscaster declaring that we now possess “the congratulations of all the nations.” She likened this to the naivete of thinking we’d be regarded as beloved saviors in Iraq. But, she ended, “in the irony-free zone that our country has become, this is not what people wanted to hear.”
Clearly, no one really did. At once, the other panelists were back to comparing Obama’s election to the fall of the Berlin Wall (Pinckney), evoking Lincoln (Delbanco), celebrating “the passing away of religious tyranny” (Wills, I believe.) And they weren’t wrong, of course, but the palpable self-congratulation in that room by some very fine minds was worrisome and uncomfortable and lacking in humility, and so Didion’s measured caution was more reassuring than all the other rhetoric combined.
Afterwards I saw someone I knew slightly. She’d loved the event, found it wise, felt the panel had put into words all her feelings. “Joan Didion was kind of a downer, though,” she said. The thing is that Didion, studying current euphoria with such a distanced eye but still able to feel moved, made me feel more optimistic then than anyone else.
After reading that, she made the list.
Gwen Ifil
The PBS and Vice-Presidential debate moderator is one of my favourite political journalists working today. She’s insightful, professional, and Washington Week is second only to the late Tim Russert’s Meet the Press in being a solid inside the beltway program that is useful for the rest of the nation.
Christiane Amanpour
This shining star of CNN’s portfolio of correspondents and anchors is also one of the best investigative journalists in the world. Her reports on religious fundamentalism, war zones abroad, and the big issues of the day are brilliant and award-winning. Her international experience is quite formidable. More than that her keen mind and understanding of the issues she covers, I think, is quite rare. Also, she has a lovely accent.
Queen Rania
The lovely Queen of Jordan is an international icon and eminent philanthropist. She is a remarkably uncommon woman. She holds a degree in Business Administration worked for Citigroup and Apple Computers before becoming Queen. She’s been an inspiring advocate for greater women’s and children’s rights in West Asia and the world in general. A practising Muslim, this year she’s led an outreach program on You Tube to address stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims.
Angelina Jolie
A world respected voice on issues of global poverty and refugees, few modern day celebrities have done as much personal good in the world as Ms. Jolie. Her work to improve conditions for the world’s needy are simply impressive and what’s more is that she puts thought into the work she’s doing. Too often celebrity opinions and editorials and blogs are well-intentioned but shallow. They engage the public in an appeal to do well without respect to fully understanding the scope of the problems they address. In that regard, Ms. Jolie stands out and stands above. Her extensive travels have given her an insight into many areas and peoples of the world and contribute to a person with considerable human experience who, in turn, tirelessly advocates for humanitarian efforts.
Anna Deavere Smith
The brilliant playwright and actress has done award-winning and terribly interesting work in the realm of documentary theatre. Her one-woman plays draw from real life events and interviews. She’s at the forefront of contemporary social critique, commentary, and the role of artists. I think her insight, understanding of civil rights issues and social injustice, and commitment to the role of art in shaping the society in which we live would make for great conversation and an exploration of often unheard points of view.
All in all I think this would be a wonderful list of dinner guests because you’d see such diversity, such wonderful use of experience, thought, and language. You’d hear things you never thought of and probably walk away with fascinating and unexpected insights.
So here’s my list and why. Who’s on yours?
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