A day after the re-elected senator he stumped heartily for called the Chinese president a dictator, MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren and wife Heather are on the White House guest list for tonight's state dinner. They're one of two sets of Nevadans on the list; Limin Liu and Dr. Hugh Shapiro of Reno are the others but I don't know them.It's an interesting invite. Murren is one of the three gaming CEOs doing serious business in China. It stands to reason that Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn wouldn't be invited given how outspoken they've been against the Obama administration. Still, Murren is also the only one who has not made absurd, suck-up remarks about how terrific Beijing is to its citizens. So who knows how these things are decided?
Sen. Reid is not attending. Interestingly, his decision not to go was not overanalyzed the way House Speaker John Boehner's was. Hmm.
Last night, I caught the bit in Jon Ralston's daily email about Reid's remarks that Hu Jintao is a dictator and posted a piece on Politics Daily later that evening. From there, it spread across the mainstream media, although nobody else had any first-hand knowledge of how sensitive Beijing is to such remarks. I, of course, was editing Chinese propaganda a decade ago.
Also tangentially related to Vegas on the guest list or just plain interesting: Maya Lin, Yo Yo Ma, Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendy (sans Rupe), Jackie Chan (with a male companion, his agent), President Carter, Herbie Hancock, Michelle Kwan, Barbra Streisand (with Mr. Streisand), Vera Wang, Anna Wintour and out gay actor B.D. Wong (with his mom, I think).
