Since there’s not really any urgent political business to attend to at the present moment, Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have invited the entirety of the U.S. Senate and their spouses to a screening of Lincoln on Dec. 19. (Presumably they’ve also sent notifications to members of the House of Representatives to let them know that, even though they may have heard about the event, they’re definitely not invited.) The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tony Kushner, Kathleen Kennedy, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom the senators will then be able to ask hopeful questions about the historical precedent for their slightly improved but still pretty awful approval rating.
Reid had the idea for the screening after he saw the film with President Obama last month and was struck by its depiction of “the good which is attainable when public servants put the betterment of the country ahead of short-term political interests.” So between this and the incipient holiday spirit circulating around the Congressional chambers, we can expect the Appropriations Committee to break out in song any day now. [via The Hollywood Reporter]