Irwin Stelzer dishes a little:
In addition to [Andrew] Roberts and myself the group included the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, neocon Norman Podhoretz and theologian Michael Novak.
The president divulged with convincing calm that when it comes to pressure, "I just don’t feel any". Why? His constituency, he feels, is the divine presence, to whom he must answer. Don’t misunderstand: God didn’t tell him to put troops in harm’s way in Iraq; his belief only goes so far as to inform him that there is good and evil. It is the president who must figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.
Has Bush ever had lunch with intellectuals who might actually disagree with him?
The Dish 