Exciting news: the DC-based Young Professionals in Foreign Policy network is organising a silent auction for charity, in which you can buy yourself a hot foreign policy lunch date.
Some of the names are pretty good. I’d be up for soup and a sandwich with Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, or with Washington Note blogger Steven Clemons. And who wouldn’t jump at the chance to grab a salad with former White House chief of staff John Podesta? I’d even – at a pinch – consider bidding for the chance to hang out with former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, if only to ask him about the opening paragraph of his biog:
“During his first four years as Secretary, America achieved the lowest vehicle fatality rate ever recorded… The Secretary has [also] overseen the safest three-year period in aviation history.”
Er, and 9/11 fits in where to this rosy account?
But all of this is before we get to the main course. For the most notable thing about YPFP’s 14 strong list is the preponderance of neo-cons. They’re all here! You can head out for dim sum with Danielle Pletka, the American Enterprise Institute’s VP for foreign policy. You can have pasta with Paul Wolfowitz. You could grill Richard Perle over a rib-eye.
Or – perhaps most attractively of all – you could sign up for lunch with former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the Honourable Douglas J Feith.
I know, I know – I’m thinking it too. And so, dear readers, a proposal. In the red corner: the man General Tommy Franks called “the stupidest fucking guy on the planet”. In the blue corner, if he’s willing to accept this demanding mission: GD’s acerbic defence guru Richard Gowan – tooled up with a tape recorder, a notebook, and enough cash for to keep the zinfandel flowing for as long as it takes.
I will chip in a crisp tenner to a Global Dashboard fighting fund to bring this exquisite vision one step closer to reality. Who’s with me? The auction’s tomorrow, so we need to be a bit quicker than the average multi-donor pledging conference if we’re to succeed…
