Yesterday, Glenn, Pat, and Stu had a little fun running through the extravagant menu and theme of last night’s state dinner to honor French President François Hollande. Inspired by Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, guests were transported to heated tents on the South Lawn via gilded trolleys. Once inside, they feasted on an elaborate four-course meal that included 12 types of potatoes, quail eggs, dry-aged rib eye, and cotton candy dusted with orange zest. This morning, the guys reacted to the opulent photos that have emerged from the soirée.
To start, Glenn took a look at the gigantic heated tents that were erected on the South Lawn:
“That's a state dinner and you expect a state different to be nice,” Pat explained. “You expect it to be elegant.”
But this tent takes ‘elegant’ to a whole new level.
“This amazes me. Look at this tent. This is not a tent,” Glenn said exasperatedly. “I've been to people's weddings, who have a billion dollars. Okay? I've seen what a billionaire does for their daughter's wedding. It ain't that.”
The place setting were just as ornate:
“Go back to that picture. Look at the place setting,” Glenn said. “Look at the embossed napkins with the presidential seal. Look at the menus. Look at the place cards. Look how thick that place card is. That is absolutely highest quality elite… They're on mirrored tables. They each have, what is it, three glasses in front of each plate.”
First Lady Michelle Obama chose to wear a $12,000 Carolina Herrera ball gown to the event with a voluminous blue skirt and lace overlay.
“Here's the First Lady. She's in a very nice simple $12,000 dress. Now, I don't begrudge anyone. You want to spend $12,000, $100,000, I don't care how much you spend on your dress. I don't care,” Glenn said. “But don't tell me that you're ‘one of the people’. Don't tell me that you are a fighter for income inequality and you don't like the evil rich people… I know how much I make, and I know how much the president makes. I know that if my wife would come home and say, ‘Hey, honey, I just bought this $12,000 dress,’ I would have a coronary.”
Opulent state dinners are nothing knew, but for a White House that prides itself on fighting income inequality and deriding the rich the optics of such an over-the-top display are not good. But, as Glenn explained, the media is nowhere to be found. The pictures from the evening aren’t making news and the menu was widely heralded in the lead up to the event.
“Where are [these photos] on television? I've been watching TV all day. They're not on television. Nobody is even talking about the damn trolleys that you paid for,” Glenn said exasperatedly. “This is a press that is dead.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP
