Who Obama invited to his first White House state dinner instead of you
It took nearly 11 months, but tonight finally the not-so-new Obama administration had its first state dinner at the White House.
Well, actually it was outside the White House on the lawn in a tent.
A very exciting time. You can see in the official guest list below that the president invited some Chicago friends, a lot of celebrities, as we reported earlier today, some Congress people (even a couple of Republicans), a bunch of Guptas, a whole lot of people called Honorable and Katie Couric.
In case you might want to steal some of the lines for your own Thanksgiving toasts Thursday, here are the official words spoken by the two countries' leaders and the crowd of official diners, both as provided by the White House.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Michelle and myself, welcome to the White House. Aapka Swagat Hai. (You are all welcome in Hindi) (Applause.)
Many of you were here when I was honored to become the first president to help celebrate Diwali -- the Festival of Lights. (Applause.) Some of you were here for the first White House celebration of the birth of the founder of Sikhism -- Guru Nanak. (Applause.) Tonight, we gather again, for the first state dinner of my presidency -- with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Gursharan Kaur, as we celebrate the great and growing partnership between the United States and India.
As we all know, in India some of life's most treasured moments are often celebrated under the cover of a beautiful tent. It's a little like tonight. We have incredible food and music and are surrounded by great friends. For it's been said that "the most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us."
Mr. Prime Minister, today we worked to fulfill our duty -- bring our countries ...