Welcome to The State Dining Room
The State Dining Room, which can seat as many as 130 platinum-level campaign contributors, was
originally much smaller and served at various times as a smoking room, storage area, and jazzercise
studio. Not until the Franklin Roosevelt administration was it called the "Dining Room," at the
insistence of Eleanor Roosevelt, who decorated the room in the height of mid-century closeted lesbian chic.
During the renovation of 1961 by architects Shriver, Bouvier & Smith, the room size was augmented
modestly to accommodate the Kennedy's large collection of Catholic cult paraphernalia and idols.
In the process, the original two Italian marble mantels were covertly relocated to Hyannis, Massachusetts -
where to this day they are instrumental in heating the gardener's shed at the fabled modern-day Gomorrah
that is the Kennedy compound. The architecture of the refurbished dining room was modeled after that of
quasi-formal foyers of the Long Island nouveau riche. Below a new ceiling and its encircling cornice of
asbestos-smothered plaster of Paris, mahogany wall paneling and a delicately patterned, albeit stubbornly
stain-resistant indoor-outdoor carpeting were installed. The chandelier, made by the Q.T. Von Mons Company
of Duluth, originally held 200 beeswax candles - which were wisely replaced with long-burning Sterno
micro-torches by former First Lady Barbara Bush.
Today, when not set for a state dinner, as seen above, the mahogany dining table, surrounded by Queen Anne-style
chairs, is kept fully stocked with freshly spit-roasted Texas boar, which President Bush and his staffers graze
upon throughout the work day, pulling succulent chunks of still-steaming pork directly off the carcass with their
bare hands, and washing each half-masticated bolus down with a tall, frothy mug of rejuvenating keg lager from
the brewmasters of Adolf Coors & Company. The room's artistic centerpiece, an original oil painting of the country
and western diva Dolly Parton, required over 350 square feet of protective bubble wrap during shipping to
Washington from the Bush ranch in Crawford, TX. Standing colored maidservants are omnipresent in the
room, where they are kept busy feverishly polishing the First Lady's set of 30 monogrammed finger bowls.
Finally, carved into the mantel below the two rococo-revival candelabra is an inscription from a letter written by Richard
Nixon on his final night in the White House:
Pat - don't forget to pack my fucking pills! I left them on the the State Dining Room mantel piece.
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