Over the past decade, The Luncheon Society ™ has gathered with many who appear as guests on cable talk shows when we meet in New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco.
When they join us, you realize just how claustrophobic basic cable can be; when they’re able to open up and talk at length, it’s like uncorking a great bottle of wine, the kind you hide until the time is right. Perhaps the food, drink, and the relaxed nature of those around the table offers a chance for them to share what’s really on their minds, if only television gave them enough time.
They are often rambunctious affairs. Several years ago, it was a Luncheon Society gatherings with Christopher Hitchens that started at a San Francisco restaurant before we all decamped for an open air bar where everybody smoked, drank, or did a little of both. 48 hours before the 2008 California Primary, Fox Contributor Lanny Davis squared off between the Obama and Hillary Clinton supporters, who were crowded together at either side of a long table at Town Hall Restaurant in San Francisco and went after each other with rhetorically sharpened knives. Last year in New York, where Jimmy Breslin held court late into the night, he bemoaned Times Square’s lack of hookers and transients with that familiar raspy voice, the one I heard in my mind’s eye, back when I read his columns in The New York Daily News.
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell has joined us as a main speaker in the past but also has visited when others spoke in Los Angeles. O’Donnell is a frequent guest on Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow and the rest of the MSNBC stable; he often guest hosts.
Only days before President Obama signed legislation to expand the definition of a hate crime, The Luncheon Society met with Judy Shepard, whose son is memorialized in the Matthew Shepard-James Byrd Hate Crime Prevention 
The Sierra Club’s Carl Pope poses the question. “Let’s say you’re canoeing down the river and it forks to the right and left. As you look one way,” he says, “you see a jarring set of rapids that travels down a treacherous route, with whitecaps that crash against the jagged rocks. However, when you look in the other direction, you see a smooth current, clear sailing, and none of the dangers found with traveling in the other direction.”
We may have lost temporarily a member, but we have gained an Ambassador. Our friend Jeff Bleich is the second member of The Luncheon Society to join the Ambassadorial ranks. Previously Jeff was the Special Counsel to the President in the Obama Administration. In private practice, Jeff was a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and has been recognized for the past 7 years as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers in California by the Daily Journal. 
Does overheated rhetoric invite and incite dangerous behavior? Is there a causal relationship between the killing of Dr. George Tiller and the rhetoric that originated from the partisan talk-television prior to his death? 
The world is a different place when seen through the eyes of Dr. Temple Grandin.
George McGovern’s Indian Summer. At a time when most have put down their pen or have simply placed themselves out to pasture, George McGovern still has a point to make.
The Luncheon Society 