Have you ever heard of this one? I sure hadn’t until very recently.
To begin with, I am not alleging in any way that this is some kind of “shadowy meeting” of the “secret world government” or anything whatsoever like that.
In Washington, there are four dinners held every year for politicians and celebrities (including celebrity journalists) to meet and have fun “roasting” each other. One is the “Gridiron” dinner, the second is the “Radio and Television Correspondents” dinner and the third is the “White House correspondents Association” dinner. All three of these are never “covered” in the press in the strict sense of it being reported on as an investigation but the jokes seen as the funniest are usually reprinted. I think we all remember the sickening images of Bush pretending to look for Iraqi WMDs from the White House Correspondents dinner a few years ago.
The fourth dinner is similar in tone and is known as the Alfalfa Club dinner. A lot of political bigwigs get together, eat a lot of meat (the menu is always filet mignon and lobster) and drink a lot of alcohol and “roast” each other. The Alfalfa Club is a bit more secretive in the sense that they actively bar “press passes” but once again the odd joke or two that they think is the “funniest” gets covered in the press.
Like all the other three big dinners, it’s a conglomeration of Beltway movers and shakers with the odd Hollywood celebrity or sports star in attendance.
Now what makes the Alfalfa Club a bit different is how it was started. It was founded in 1913 by “four Southern gentlemen”. I was not able to find their names but at least one was a Confederate veteran. The Alfalfa Club dinner is held once a year on Robert E. Lee’s birthday and still is today.
The name comes from a reference to the plant alfalfa’s consumption of liquids. Quite frankly the Alfalfa Club’s purpose (besides to celebrate the Confederacy) is for Washington bigwigs to get stinking drunk and tell “off-color” (aka misogynistic, racist and otherwise offensive) jokes and not have the press there to report on it.
From 1913 until sometime in the 1970’s, membership in the club and attendance at the dinners was strictly limited to white males. At some date in the 1970’s, black males and other people of color (in extremely limited numbers) were permitted to attend. Women were not allowed in (even as guests) until 1994 when Bill Clinton (an Alfalfa member) brought his wife.
So, what’s the big deal with some Washington insiders (and their lackey press) hanging out once a year to get drunk and tell jokes? Well to begin with, the jokes aren’t funny. Secondly, you have to look at who exactly attends these things.
To give you an idea of the tone of this thing, you have to understand that in the beginning of the Alfalfa Club’s existence, all the dinners were held at the Willard Hotel. Without going into it too much, the word “lobbyist” comes from the Willard Hotel – people who wanted to gain influence with politicians used to catch them in the lobby. Today the Alfalfa Club continues to be a meeting of all the powerful people that lobbyists spend money and energy lobbying.
George W. Bush is a major fan of the Alfalfa Club and has never missed a meeting since he took office. I don’t know his attendance record before that but I know he’s been going to them for a while. George might miss a few opportunities to address the NAACP and other organizations but he damn well won’t ever miss the Alfalfa Club dinner.
This is hardly surprising since both his father (George H.W.) and grandfather (Prescott) are also members and are/were regular attendees. You might remember old Prescott as being the guy whose pro-Nazi business tendencies had to be forcibly severed by the President and even continued throughout the war.
Once a year, even in non-election years, “just for fun” the Alfalfa Club nominates one member to “run for President”. Sort of like nominating their own candidate except its “all in jest”. All three Bushes have been chosen as the Alfalfa Club’s nominee for President, Prescott (1959), George H.W. (1970) and George W. (1996).
Other fun-lovin’ political bigwigs “nominated for President” by the Alfalfa Club have been Alan Simpson, Ted Stevens, Dick Lugar, Trent Lott, John McCain, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Alexander Haig and Barry Goldwater.
Now what kind of jokes go on at these dinners? Again there’s never any official press coverage but here’s some snippets of what I’ve found:
Here’s George W. at the 2007 dinner:
In our very first meeting, Speaker Pelosi told me her number one priority was helping the unemployed, so, Jeb, I gave her your number.”
That was Bush, according to his remarks.
“It’s kind of embarrassing. One day he’s governor of Florida. The next day he’s moved back in with mom and dad. It occurred to me last week that if Senator Clinton wins in 2008, the last four presidents will be a Bush, a Clinton, a Bush, a Clinton. So hang in there, Jebbie.”
Another 2007 Alfalfa attendee was the “genius” general Tommy Franks:
Retired Army Gen. Tommy Frank stook a moment to ponder the question of partying during wartime.
“I don’t think this demeans the service of our young men and women, who are as they have been since 9/11, out there working hard tonight just like they were today, just like they were yesterday,” Franks said.
Partying, he continued, “is okay with me as long as we remember the kids and continue to respect what they’re doing.”
Party on, Garth.
Other attendees at the 2007 meeting were Michael Bloomberg, Jane Harman, John Robert (Supreme Court chief justice), Elaine Chao (Sec Labor), her husband Sen. Mitch McConnell and General P.X. Kelley. If you don’t know who General Kelley is, I’ll cover him a lot more in the next one of these.
Interestingly enough, John Fabrizi (mayor of Bridgeport), who also attended, told the reporter:
“This is a very elite group that has direct economic impact on America and the world. You have a mix of elected officials and a lot of business folks here tonight. So I hope they enjoy themselves and get back to work on Monday morning.”
Jolly good!
Let’s go to the 2006 Alfalfa Club meeting. Bush decided to toss out a few more of his delightful “jokes”:
He raised all the issues that will be covered in his State of the Union address and a few that most probably won’t be. Like his take on the gay-cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain.
“It’s always good to see Vice-President Dick Cheney,” he told revellers including Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and a slew of ambassadors — but not Australian ambassador Dennis Richardson.
“Lynne Cheney and Laura were out of town recently, so I called up Dick and said, ‘Why don’t we go to a movie?’
“He said, ‘Great idea, let’s go to a cowboy movie.’
“Yep, finally we went to see Brokeback Mountain. Let me tell you, whooo-eee.
“Dick sat through the movie, didn’t say a word. We came out. After a while he says: ‘Nice horses.’ I say ‘Yep.’
“Then he becomes real quiet again and kind of serious. I knew something was on his mind. Finally he turned to me and said: ‘You don’t suppose the Lone Ranger and Tonto …”
On the controversy involving domestic eavesdropping without court approval, Mr Bush feigned astonishment.
“You know, you can’t please some people no matter what you do,” he said. “Half the time they say I’m isolated and don’t listen. Then when I do listen, they say I need a warrant.”
Mr Bush acknowledged members of his family in the room, including brothers Jeb and Marvin and his father.
“A little earlier as we were getting ready, Dad was talking to Jeb, Marvin and me. Surrounded by his sons, he got a little choked up. Amidst the tears, he said: ‘Boys, this evening would be perfect if only your new brother, Bill Clinton, could’ve been here.’ “
Mr Bush also picked his mother out from the audience, asking “Mom, you got in any trouble lately?”, in reference to her controversial remarks about homeless victims of hurricane Katrina.
He concluded by making it clear that he was impressed with the performance of Samuel Alito, his nominee for the Supreme Court, before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
And he explained why Mr Alito’s wife burst out crying at one stage and had to leave the committee room.
“Martha Alito won America’s heart,” Mr Bush said. “What a warm and wonderful woman. I talked to her. You wanna know what really caused her to cry at those hearings? Boredom.”
It remains to be seen just how close to this speech the State of the Union address will be. It depends, according to Administration officials, how the Alfalfa Club address does in hastily organised focus group research.
Well har, har, har. As we used to say when I was a kid, that’s so funny I forgot to laugh.
Besides the weird family alienation thing, let’s not forget why Barbara Bush was slammed for her comments on Katrina refugees. Here’s the quote:
What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them.
Not to mention she was pimping her son Neil’s educational projects, etc.
And let’s not forget why Samuel Alito’s wife was crying. Her husband was getting grilled on how permissive and “torture-friendly” he is and then an aide mysteriously slid Alito to the right because he was blocking the view of his wife and then a minutes later she started crying and everyone heaped outrage on the Democrats and sympathy for Alito increased ten-fold.
Ha ha ha! But wait, Bush added in one more Alito-related zinger:
And he reportedly closed with a note on what happened at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Samuel Alito. “And let me clear up something else. I do not support torture . . . which is why from now on we’re abolishing Senate confirmation hearings.”
Ho ho!
Even funnier is Bush trying to work in some homophobic comments about Brokeback Mountain, this coming from a guy who is doing everything in his power to prevent homosexuals from having basic human rights. Knee slapper!
Even funnier is joking about breaking the constitution to wiretap on American citizens. I just flew into Washington and boy are my arms tired!
Bush wasn’t the only “comedian”. Here’s Senator Mitch McConnell:
To President Bush, McConnell said: “Mr. President, it is good to see you. I was distressed to read press reports that there was a rift between you and your father and that you are now speaking only at Bush family functions such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Alfalfa dinner and invading Iraq.”
We assumed they laughed because it was a pretty funny line. Get it: Iraq has been a family affair.
McConnell continued, according to the excerpt: “I want to acknowledge my wife, our nation’s secretary of labor, Elaine Chao. . . . And she is the motivation for what will be my platform as president of the Alfalfa Club. It is time we take our culture of cronyism and replace it with a different culture. A new culture, a better culture. It’s time we replace a culture of cronyism with a culture of nepotism. Alfalfans one. Alfalfans all: Ask not what this club can do for you. Ask what this club can do for your family.”
Gosh it doesn’t get much funnier than political nepotism and cracks about that zany little war in Iraq.
Here’s more from zingmaster Bush:
Bush joked about the Jack Abramoff scandal. “Now I also note from the seating chart that Alfalfa has its normal share of billionaires in the audience. By the way, one of the things that surprised me about the Abramoff scandal is how much money some of the Indian tribes have. In fact, it wasn’t until tonight that I learned that Warren Buffett and David Rockefeller are Chippewas.”
Here’s 2004‘s Alfalfa Club hilarity:
peaking of former secretary of state and treasury secretary James Baker, President Bush said at the Alfalfa Club the other night: “Jimbo’s been going around getting countries to forgive Iraq’s debt. Next, I’m going to send him out and see what he can do about ours.” And so it went, with President Bush noting of former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill’s hostile book that “Paul said I was disengaged because he talked to me for 45 minutes and I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t disengaged, I was bored as hell, and my mother taught me never to interrupt.”
And, finally, the Bush topper of the night invoked the president’s enthusiasm about the economy creating so many new businesses. “Just the other day,” he cracked, “I read that Pete Rose and Bill Bennett are opening a casino.”
Ho, ho, ho.
More 2004 jocularity:
” ‘Boy, that speech in Iowa was something else,’ Bush said, referring to Howard Dean’s field holler after placing third in the caucuses Monday. ‘Talk about shock and awe. Saddam Hussein felt so bad for Governor Dean that he offered him his hole.’
It’s not just Republican bigwigs who attend these things either. Here’s a quote from Vernon Jordan:
“‘Mr. President, I feel like I’m at one of your Cabinet meetings — a blind man in a room full of deaf people. . . . Before I hand over my presidency to my successor, let me take a moment, regardless of whether we are Christian, Jew or Muslim, and thank the Almighty, the one who controls our destiny as a nation — Karl Rove.'”
Hey at least that one is slightly funny even if it is mostly painful.
And those are just the jokes. There’s other “funny” business going on such as the insider cronyism between the Alfalfa Club members such as the continuing monkey business with the Riggs Bank, run by Bush relatives, used to launder money and all kinds of other nefarious practices. One tiny side issue in the Riggs Bank corruption is that Joe Allbritton (who owns 40% of Riggs) used his company’s jet to fly Alan Greenspan (then Federal Reserve Chairman) around at a time when Greenspan was in charge of regulating Riggs.
Oh wait a minute, actually he was flying around Greenspan’s wife, “journalist” Andrea Mitchell. He also was using his private jet to fly around other “journalists” like Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyers, including to attend the Alfalfa Club. Nothing like “embedding” with the people who are the “watchdogs” at an exclusive, off-color drunken party is there?
I also note that the Riggs Bank plane was used to fly around Ted Stevens, who probably deserves his own full-length diary, and who also coincidentally is one of those Alfalfa Club “presidential nominees”.
And on and on and on. It’s a minor thing in comparison but I also note that there seems to be a tradition of smoking real Cuban cigars during these dinners. I guess violating a trade embargo is nothing to get too worked up about when you’re rubbing elbows with the Beltway movers and shakers.
So why is this a conspiracy? Well simply because it’s going on and it is barely ever reported on. You tell me – have you ever heard of the Alfalfa Club before? Do you think it is relevant that a large number of politicians in office are meeting to drink and tell off-color and insensitive jokes? Do you think it is relevant that they’re doing this as part of a Confederate whites-only tradition? Do you think that any time powerful business (over 100 CEOs) and political leaders get together to socialize ought to be covered in the press?
Well I guess the only good news came from an undercover report from the event (this last one in 2007):
A leading general of the Marine Corps told me that on average, a black guy in South Philadelphia is more likely to get shot than any of our troops in Iraq, “and that’s a good thing.” One guest beamed that he had just met his personal hero, Antonin Scalia. The most appalling joke had to be the one about the interviewer who asks a soldier what he feels after he has shot and killed someone in battle (answer: “Recoil”). And one Republican speaker bemoaned that in the new Congress he wouldn’t be able to leave on Wednesday night for the weekend. I kept my cool by conveniently having a roll of bread or a glass of wine in my hand every time everyone stood up to clap for George Bush.
But I slowly became more comfortable when I realized the applause for W was a bit disingenuous. Of the jokes told, an overwhelming majority of them were not leveled at Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton, but rather at Bush–and truly savage ones at that. I can’t count how many times speakers cracked about how he bought the 2000 Election (and these people would know, too). Military commanders complained that he didn’t listen to them, and one speaker noted that the only politician who benefited from an association with George Bush last year was Hugo Chavez. One by one, politicians lobbed rhetorical WMD’s at him.
Well it isn’t perfect but at least it’s something.
Pax