Light lunch

Had lunch with a very well-known Dem whose sister lives in Chicago. She held a reception for a Chicago resident who was joining the Obama administration. The hostess’ mother was visiting from the East Coast. She was not impressed with the Chicago political crowd that showed up. "These Chicago people," she trenchantly observed, "they don’t ...

Had lunch with a very well-known Dem whose sister lives in Chicago. She held a reception for a Chicago resident who was joining the Obama administration.

Had lunch with a very well-known Dem whose sister lives in Chicago. She held a reception for a Chicago resident who was joining the Obama administration.

The hostess’ mother was visiting from the East Coast. She was not impressed with the Chicago political crowd that showed up. "These Chicago people," she trenchantly observed, "they don’t know from Tuesday." Later the conversation turned to really bad twists that history could take — unexpected developments that could really throw us for a loop. A particularly striking example we arrived at: God arrives on earth and a group of Jewish people clamor to him and say, "God, we have been waiting and waiting and still no sign of the Messiah." And God says, "What are you talking about? I sent him years ago." And the people say, "What? We missed that? Who? Who was it?" And God says, "Why, it was Michael Dukakis."

I don’t know…to me, that’s funny.

David Rothkopf is visiting professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His latest book is The Great Questions of Tomorrow. He has been a longtime contributor to Foreign Policy and was CEO and editor of the FP Group from 2012 to May 2017. Twitter: @djrothkopf

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