Brad Keywell, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Kim Keywell

One of the biggest nights in DC are the Kennedy Center Honors, and this year’s group of honorees had no shortage of talent or star power.  Honored Sunday night were Meryl Streep, Neil Diamond, Barbara Cook, Yo-Yo Ma and Sonny Rollins.  The show was packed with star studded performances and speeches.  Famed screen writer Nora Ephron even declared that actress Meryl Streep, whose movie, Iron Lady, where in which she plays Margaret Thatcher, comes out December 16th, should also play Hillary Clinton.  Ephron said to Clinton from stage about Streep, “you met her tonight, and I’m sure you thought she was charming, but she was just soaking you up.”

After the ceremonies, there was a moment when all traffic stopped at the Kennedy Center Honors dinner to watch actress Anne Hathaway hug Kennedy Center Honoree Barbara Cook at a table that included Patti Lupone and Glenn Close. Inches away, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stopped to chat with political stars David Axelrod, Delaware’s Senator Chris Coons, Governor Markell and Groupon Co-founder Brad Keywell.

The Kennedy Center Honors will be aired December 27th on CBS.

Check out more photos from the evening below:

Check out the photos and and full story by the Huffington Post’s Christina Wilkie here.

Watch the trailer for Miss Representation below:

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

The President, in between his Congressional negotiations, met with World Series Champions, San Francisco Giants.  Joining them in the East Room were former San Francisco Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, as well as current Mayor Ed Lee, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Baseball legend, Willie Mays, was also in attendance who “was just a 23-year-old out-fielder the last time the Giants won the World Series, back when the team was in New York.”  President Obama said, “even though there have been some great Giant’s teams since them, none of them had brought a championship back to the Bay Area.”  This was a special team indeed, as Obama quoted manager Bruce Bochy, who once called them a bunch of ‘misfits and cast-offs’ and then looks around at the unique team, but then said the “one thing they know, is how to win.”

The President ended his talk with wishing the Giants the best of luck, ”unless the White Sox are in the world series, which right now is not a sure thing” and was then presented with a signed bat, custom glove and jersey #44.

Gavin Newsom, was also in town to discuss his upcoming release of California’s Economic Growth and Competitiveness plan–state’s first plan in a decade–meeting with the Center for American Progress, Brookings Institution, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the State Department, and the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and stopped by 701 Pennsylvania Avenue with friends such as Eve and Peter O’Toole, Marc Adelman, Reta Jo Lewis, Dan Maldonado, Evan Ryan, Francisco Sanchez, Maria Teresa Kumar, Neil Albert, Patricia Daley and Paul Glenchur.

Check out photos below:

Here are some photos if you missed the live stream of the event:

Check out photos from the event below:

The annual Easter Egg roll at the White House brought stars from Hollywood and families from around the country to the nation’s lawn.  Festivities kicked off with a soulful, acoustic version of the National Anthem by Colbie Caillat (which you can see her sing in the video above) and a Presidential introduction of the Easter Bunny and the First Family.  Malia and Sasha Obama then made a rare public appearance to read Maurice Sendak‘s classic book, Where the Wild Things Are (video below).

President Obama and First Lady Michele Obama then read Chicken Chicken Boom Boom (with an extremely well behaved Bo Obama at their feet).  The President also shot some hoops with kids on the basketball court while thousands of other guests enjoyed performances by Greyson Chace and Willow Smith or played with their food with celebrity chefs like Spike Mendelsohn.  There were also tennis, football, and yoga games, appearances by a variety of cartoon characters such as Charlie Brown and Clifford, and some of the most cherished photo-ops any family could have.  All went on without a hitch thanks to the months of planning by White House Staff and the leadership of the Director of the White House Visitor’s Office, Ellie Schafer.  For photos more photos of the Easter Egg Roll go here.

Dir. of White House Visitor's Office Ellie Schafer directing people into the annual Easter Egg Roll

Fishbowl DC’s Matt Dornic posted the invite from MSNBC President Phil Griffin, the first official one of the WHCD season.

Those attending will have a donation made in their name to DonorsChoose.org.

Susan Sher at a luncheon in her honor at The Jefferson Hotel in Washington,DC

New Washington friends and old Chicago pals gathered at The Jefferson Hotel to honor Susan Sher. Sher came to Washington with the Obamas serving first in the White House Counsel’s office and for the last 18 months as the First Lady’s Chief of Staff. Connie Milstein, Hilary Rosen and Tammy Haddad hosted the luncheon, which included David Axelrod, Kevin Sheekey, Julianna Smoot and Patrick Gaspard.

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren (with his wife, Sally) saluted Sher’s West Orange, New Jersey roots as the other jersey girls, Anita Dunn and Hilary Rosen, proudly cheered him on.

While not a jersey girl, Manhattan-born Connie Milstein, is the proprietor of The Jefferson and invited the guests to raise their glasses to “thank Susan for her service to the nation.”

David Axelrod, who leaves Washington at the end of the month, praised Sher for her always-cool leadership and integrity. Axelrod said he was already making Chicago plans with Sher and Julianna Smoot, the White House Social Secretary, who announced this week she would go back to Chicago as Deputy Campaign Manager.

Other guests included Milstein’s husband, JC de La Haye Saint Hilarie, Linda Douglass, Rabbi David Saperstein, Anne Fleming, Alan Solow, Susan Davies, Danielle Grey, Maude Baggetto, Ted Greenberg, Danielle Borrin, and Holly Page.

The luncheon crowd dined on Tomato soup, Cod, Coq au Vin and Chocolate Brulee and everyone walked out with an anatomically correct White House chocolate bar. Click for photo gallery

Gordon Brown, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and wife Sarah, were in Washington this weekend to launch his U.S. book tour. The Browns were greeted by top politicos, global financial leaders and media types at a stately affair held at the Jefferson Hotel. The party was co-hosted by long-time friends Connie Milstein, owner of the Jefferson Hotel and her husband, J.C. de La Haye St. Hilaire, and Ted Greenberg & Tammy Haddad.

Brown charmed the A-plus crowd, including the Obama Administration’s David and Susan Axelrod, Austan and Robin Goolsbee, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, Bill Burton and Laura Burton Capps, Stephanie Cutter, Bruce Reed, Eric Lesser and Katie McCormick Lelyveld, as he had a little fun describing his post PM life as well as giving his assessment of the global economy.

Here are Brown’s comments as reported by Politics Daily on AOL –
“In brief remarks, Brown — among the first world leaders to rescue troubled banks at home in 2008 — warned that “for the time in 200 years, America and Europe are being out-produced, out-invested, out-traded and out-exported” by other nations, and that the solution to the global crisis was to tap into a billion middle class consumers in Asia who in 10 years will have twice the buying power as Americans.”

Brown repeated that same message on ABC News “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” saying that while Asia and China had to consume more, “Europe’s got to reform its markets. America is prepared to invest in the future, while doing its fiscal consolidation. And that would mean, in my view, that you would have this exit strategy from a crisis based on high growth and high employment and not low growth and what I fear is high unemployment for a decade.”

The former prime minister — who earlier in his career spent a decade as finance minister — warned that the immediate danger “is that people cut back in education, which is vital for the future, that people cut back on their international contacts, because they think the solutions lie in national answers to their problems, when they lie in global cooperation. And I think the danger is, you have a ’30s-style protectionism where people relapse into currency wars, as we’re seeing, or trade wars or banning takeovers that have got cross-border ramifications, or simply a protectionism in of the mind, where anti-immigrant sentiment gets to the point that we’re not really talking to each other in a way that means that we have a coordinated world.”

A crowd formed around media celebrities including new CNN host Piers Morgan and his wife Celia Walden, Arianna Huffington and Glee’s Matthew Morrison.

Notables in the crowd: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of World Bank; Ambassador Capricia Marshall; Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell; Terry McAuliffe; Rima al Sabah, Bob Barnett and Rita Braver; Bruce and Bonnie Reed; Robert and Ellen Bennett; Hilary Rosen and Kate Harold; Sam and Danielle Feist; Dan and Rhoda Glickman; Shelby Coffey; Anita McBride; Sally Quinn; NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, and the BBC’s Rome and Amy Hartman.

“Beyond the Crash” is published by Free Press/Simon & Schuster.