HotelChatter

Surprisingly, the dude let us in when we flashed our Blackberry showing the email about the meeting, and we proceeded past the scores of security into the lobby. No one asked for our ID, or even asked what we were doing past that first check. Our bag was checked, we walked through the metal detector, and made our way up to the 35th floor lobby bar.

There we were told the MO Bar was closed because of the Obama visit, and only hotel guests could take a table at the lobby bar. Some confusion ensued, but the Mandarin Oriental staff were as polite and helpful as we have ever found them, and did not seem ruffled by the hubbub. At last we found our meeting group in the lobby bar, but despite a few long glances across the room, none of us spied the President.

So what was Obama doing at one of the most expensive hotels in the city? Appearing at a Democratic Party fund-raiser for about 200 people who paid $30,400 a couple for the privilege of being in the same room as the POTUS. And what was he there to say? Uh, well, he took a (polite) swing at Wall Street, reminding donors that its shortsightedness led to the calamity of the financial meltdown.

In other words, telling rich people to stop being morons. Meanwhile, out in the lobby bar we ordered a $19 cocktail and then hightailed it back through the phalanx of security it to the subway.

[Photo: Newsday]