Kennedy Honors, Bush and Hollywood

[buttmunch]

WASHINGTON - There's no people like show people - mostly die-hard Democrats - so a lot of folks were holding their noses yesterday as they prepared to attend President Bush's cocktail party at the White House for the Kennedy Center Honors.
"That's the lowest thing on my list," Glenn Close told me at a preshow brunch at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel here, where Brit actress Helen Mirren traipsed around the dining room sporting a hand-lettered T-shirt urging "Help New Orleans and the gulf."

Also roiling around the room was the word that for the first time in the event's 27-year history, the White House had asked the trustees of the Kennedy Center - via faxes to their homes - not to be present for cocktails and the awards ceremony at the White House. And Democratic trustees were complaining that they'd been assigned lousy seats for the show at the Kennedy Center.

Violin virtuoso Joshua Bell told me he'd heard that several of his fellow artists were boycotting the White House event "because of this President" - not Bell, though.

"I have great respect for the position of the President," he said. "And I happen to love the Kennedy Center Honors, because it's the only time when artists are treated as heroes."

This year's honorees were Tony Bennett, Robert Redford, Julie Harris, Suzanne Farrell and Tina Turner, who, being a night owl, didn't turn up for brunch.

Former NBC News alpha male Tom Brokaw, part of last night's Robert Redford presentation, dodged my question about what the Honors tradition means to him.

"I don't know, I've never been to this event before - it's CBS," Brokaw said.

But CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves told me he's been schmoozing Brokaw big-time in Washington.

"We have an offer on the table any time Tom Brokaw wants it," Moonves said before hastily adding, "Make sure you write that I said that tongue in cheek."

Sure.

Tongue in cheek.

[AliceInWonderland]

YaY for my baby Robert Redford