I had a splendid adventure Monday night journeying into the heart of Republican Manhattan for a book party at Patsy’s on West 56th Street in honor of my friend James Rosen and The Strong Man, his new biography of John Mitchell (which received a strong recommendation last Sunday in the Times from William Safire.) Along with being a contributing editor to Playboy, James is a correspondent for Fox News, and the room was full of handsome people with strong white teeth and well-thatched heads, including Fox’s Roger Ailes, Eric Shawn and Bill Hemmer, the immortal Tom Wolfe, novelist Warren Adler, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, and a group of well-fed gentlemen who looked as if they mutter darkly whenever the name John Dean is uttered within earshot. The food was great, James gave a warm and amusing speech, and my sole regret is that after spending much of Sunday rummaging in the attic, I still couldn’t find my Humphrey-Muskie button. Congratulations, James!
Left, James with radio producer Lee Mason; right, Fox’s Bill Hemmer, Lee Mason, and Warren Adler, author of War of the Roses and former head of Jews for Nixon.