Dowd And Donaghy

On March 24, 2014, Maureen Dowd trekked all the way from her Georgetown brownstone to the Kennedy Center to deliver the 27th Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. What made it newsworthy was that she was joined by old friend Alec Baldwin, aka 30 Rock media mogul Jack Donaghy. This was one of Baldwin's first public appearances since publicly avowing to never make public appearances again. Or as Washington Post's Reliable Sources put it:

When the press releases went out the special instructions were crystal clear: “Please note that Alec Baldwin will not be taking any questions from the media. However, he is available for photos.” Then there was the reminder a week later, “Again, just want to let you know that Alec Baldwin is available for photo opportunities but he will not be taking any questions.”
And just in case some poor unfortunate scribe didn’t get the hint, at the actual reception we were reminded yet again. Okay, got it. Baldwin, who famously gave his “public life” the kiss off in an epic New York magazine “as told to” in February, doesn’t do interviews. Alright already.

But he does pose for photos including this one:



And the dead trees edition of WaPo has this photo of Alec with the lady of the hour:

The full event with Dowd's speech can be seen here (Baldwin's introduction as the Y-Chromosome starts at about minute 19):



And here is another photo from the event, this one with Alec and Maureen standing with Robert Lynch, CEO, Americans for the Arts:

But once again my invitation to her event got lost in the mail. I'm beginning to wonder if she is trying to avoid me.