Thursday, February 14, 2013

Valentine’s Day. Very interesting and enjoyable evening. Chris and I were invited by Wayne and Catherine Reynolds to a dinner in the Adams Room of the Hay Adams Hotel to honor Ehud Barak, Defense Minister and former Prime Minister of Israel. He is in the USA for a meeting with Leon Panetta (Secretary of Defense). Great time. Usual A crowd of DC, which this time included David Petraeus and his wife Holly. Had the chance to speak with Petraeus and mentioned that I often said Hi to him as we passed running on the C & O Canal. He said he recognized me, which was probably just being polite. I thanked him for his years of service to the country. He was very gracious. Obviously, some degree of awkwardness in the crowd given the Paula Broadwell scandal and his wife being there on “Valentine’s Day”. Also present among many other were Bob Barnett and wife, Ed Markey (soon to run for Senator from Massachusetts) and wife Susan Blumenthal, Rick Atkinson (Pulitzer Prize winner author), Lyric Winik and husband Jay, Ben Carson and wife Candy, Josh Bolten and his new girlfriend (?name), Bill Cohen (former Sec. of Defense) and wife Janet, etc. Barak gave a very insightful speech on the challenges facing Israel in the context of the Arab Spring, Syria, and Iran.