Conan O’Brian hosting. Attendees like Kevin Spacey, Barbra Streisand, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Steven Spielberg, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sigourney Weaver. And a 20 lb swag bag stuffed with goodies. What is this, the Oscars?

Over at Huffington Post, there’s a blaring headline in two, count ‘em, two different columns from resident Villager, er, “Editorial Director,” Howard Fineman, about how improbably wonderful Mitch McConnell is up close and personal. With a mixture of dread and morbid curiosity, I clicked on it, and let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised; in just a few short paragraphs, which in the hands of a more able writer could have been reduced to a drunken tweet, Fineman’s starstruck paean to that cantankerous old biddy beautifully summed up everything that is wrong with Washington, and our politics.

Come let’s live blog the arrivals and the delicious meal which hopefully will include dessert this year, along with main speaker Jimmy Kimmel and the usual good-natured ribbing from POTUS.

The Murdoch phone-hacking scandal is billed as British tabloids run amok, and the US media seems fixed on the “Gosh, I’m glad that could never happen here” storyline. Sadly, the phone-hacking label is a misstatement — that’s the symptom, but the problem is deeper. Behind the phone-hacking, however, are the revelations of the incestuous nature of politicians and journalists in the world of British politics and media.

And that, my friends, is a well-accepted part of the DC world. See “Russert, Tim” or “Mitchell, Andrea (Mrs Alan Greenspan)” or “White House Correspondents Dinner” or . . .

You get the idea. I just wish the Media Villagers did.

No, not the royal wedding. The royal wedding was an event I am more than capable or regarding with my customary benevolent equanimity. The carryings-on of the British aristocracy are frivolous, and the tabloid obsession with them ranges from vacuous to terrifying, but overall –eh, the British Royals, whatever they get up to, I worry about them precisely as much as I worry about what their namesakes from Kansas City are doing with their relief pitching.