Jackie Kennedy Onassis

Trump’s Ballroom will make America great

There is nothing like the thrill of getting a White House invitation. Even though I worked there at the time, I vividly recall the sparkly feeling when I read that "The President and First Lady" requested the pleasure of my company at a reception for the US Embassy hostages who had just come home from captivity in Iran. It was a great stroke for my ego, simultaneously a sensation of importance and reward for work well done. My origins are plebeian and it ranked among the most exciting things that happened to me since being unexpectedly invited to tea with Princess Margaret at Oxford. A White House social invitation is an informal tool of presidential power. From George and Martha Washington onward White House invitations have been used to achieve policy aims.

Ballroom

The real Kennedy men

Long before the #MeToo movement shattered the careers and reputations of people like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey; long before Jeffrey Epstein and R. Kelly were locked up for committing heinous sex crimes; and long before we’d become familiar with names like Monica Lewinsky and Virginia Roberts Giuffre, there were the Kennedys. In very basic terms, that’s the premise of Maureen Callahan’s book Ask Not — a title that riffs on JFK’s inaugural address — which salaciously chronicles how men from three generations of one of America’s most exalted families spent their lives perpetrating violent misogyny and psychological abuse without suffering so much as a polite slap on the wrist.

Kennedy

Joe Biden’s picks for the first female Veep

Cockburn attended Joe Biden’s virtual press conference on Wednesday afternoon. As he struggled to keep his eyes open, he noticed a small piece of paper by Biden’s elbow — a list of names, written in a shaky hand. So Cockburn screenshotted it, then turned his desktop upside down. Here’s Joe Biden’s shortlist for America’s first female vice president:  Eleanor Roosevelt Why sandbag the Senate when you can handbag it? Mrs Roosevelt is a rising star of the Democratic left’s woke wing. She’s never seen in public without her handbag, and it’s crammed with big plans for the post-COVID-19 bounce-back.

veep