State Dinners
At a 1996 state dinner for then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, President Clinton and Marylouise Shrum engaged in dinner conversation that left even guest Dan Aykroyd flummoxed.
Shrum’s husband, longtime Democratic operative Bob Shrum, relates in his upcoming book “No Excuses” that Marylouise sat at the president’s table along with Mrs. Chrétien, Andrea Mitchell and Aykroyd, the well-known actor/comedian and “Saturday Night Live” alumnus from Canada.
Despite Clinton’s recent knee injury at golfer Greg Norman’s house, Shrum writes that Clinton “was
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anything but subdued and not particularly interested in talking about matters of state.”
Marylouise brought up gay rights legislation then before Congress and suggested to the president that it should cover transgendered people, as well.
“Oh,” replied Clinton, “you mean like the movie ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’?”
“Not really,” said Mrs. Shrum, explaining that in that film, only one of the main characters was transgendered; two were transvestites.
Clinton asked what the difference was, and she replied, “Accoutrement.”
According to the book, Mrs. Chrétien “sat in stunned silence,” while Aykroyd told Marylouise, “I didn’t think this is what we would talk about at a state dinner.”
“SNL” also figures in Shrum’s narrative during Al Gore’s presidential run in 2000. Shrum admits that prior to a debate with President Bush, he and adviser Carter Eskew advised Gore to hammer home that the then-governor wanted to privatize Social Security.
This led to him using the term “lockbox” seven times, which “SNL” would turn into “classic political satire.”
Afterward, Shrum writes, Eskew showed him the tape of the “SNL” skit “to loosen [Gore] up; it was obvious that seeing it just made him more uptight.”
