Photograph by Pete Souza/White House

First Lady Michelle Obama

On a night of celebrities answering the question — “Who are you wearing?” — the announcement of the Academy Award for the best motion picture came from someone wearing a gown straight from a dinner of the nation’s governors in the White House.

Photo of First Lady Michelle Obama announcing #Oscar2013 best picture winner from @whitehouse to ARGO. twitter.com/petesouza/stat…

— petesouza (@petesouza) February 25, 2013

White House photographer Pete Souza was ready for first lady Michelle Obama’s surprise announcement of the Oscar for “Argo,” following a formal dinner that she and President Barack Obama hosted at the White House for the National Governors Association.

There is a White House nexus to this saga, after all — seeing as the 1979 taking of American hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran served as the backdrop for the Ben Affleck film about the freeing of a select group who had escaped during the raid on the embassy and found refuge in another’s residence, and seeing as the general plot surrounding those 444 days of captivity for 52 Americans and a failed rescue mission for them was instrumental in the retirement of another president, Jimmy Carter.

Michelle Obama’s communications director, Kristina Schake, issued a statement: “The Academy Awards approached the First Lady about being a part of the ceremony. As a movie lover, she was honored to present the award and celebrate the artists who inspire us all — especially our young people — with their passion, skill and imagination.”

And for the record: The first lady was wearing Naeem Khan in her announcement broadcast live from the Diplomatic Room.

It was a thrill to announce the #Oscars2013 best picture winner from the @whitehouse! Congratulations Argo! -mo

— FLOTUS (@FLOTUS) February 25, 2013

Original post is Michelle Obama: ‘The Oscar, Argo’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by David James/20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

Byron Jennings, Joseph Cross, Hal Holbrook, Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, David Strathairn, Jeremy Strong, and David Costabile in 'Lincoln.'

Lame-duck sessions of Congress can be larger than life.

That’s the way the lame-duck session of the winter of 1864 was portrayed in the film, “Lincoln,” the tale about President Abraham Lincoln’s winning of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution barring slavery.

Fitting that the film should play for the lame-duck session of the winter of 2012, as lawmakers struggle to avert a “fiscal cliff.”

Steven Spielberg, director of the film, and Daniel Day-Lewis, who delivered a powerful portrayal of Lincoln in it, plan to attend a screening for members of Congress at 5 pm EST tomorrow.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, a film buff, already has taken fellow Republicans to see the film on one of his move nights out. It focuses on the power of a president to convince a balking House of Representatives to narrowly do the seemingly impossible.

Based on the state of play of fiscal-cliff talks, some may need a second viewing.

Original post is Spielberg’s `Lincoln’: Cinematic Treat Best Served with Lame-Duck by Political Capital.

Photograph by Danny Moloshok/AP Photo

Producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, left, and director Steven Spielberg arrive at the America's Democratic Legacy Award Gala in this file photo.

Movie director Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc., were among the million-dollar donors last month to Priorities USA Action, the super-PAC founded by former aides to President Barack Obama.

Katzenberg gave $2 million to the super-PAC last year, helping it to get off the ground, and Spielberg earlier contributed $100,000. Spielberg’s studio gave $2 million to the host committee that helped put on the Democratic National Convention last month in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Priorities USA Action also took in $2 million last month from Newsweb Corp. CEO Fred Eychaner and $1.5 million from Renaissance Technologies Corp. chairman James H. Simons, according to a filing today with the Federal Election Commission.

The super-PAC also received $1 million from lawyer David Boies, the lead counsel for then-Vice President Al Gore in the U.S. Supreme Court case that gave the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. The United Auto Workers union also contributed $1 million.

Other donors included Slimfast Foods founder S. Daniel Abraham ($1.2 million); Rob Walton ($300,000), the chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the oldest son of its late founder, Sam Walton; Evan Williams ($250,000), the founder of Twitter Inc.; and Matt Groening ($50,000), the creator of The Simpsons television series.

Priorities USA Action has raised $50.9 million since the beginning of 2011, less than one-half of the $111.5 million taken in by Restore Our Future, a super-PAC helping Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Priorities USA Action, which has attacked Romney’s background as a private-equity executive, began October with $7.3 million in the bank.

Greg Giroux contributed to this post

Original post is Spielberg, Katzenberg Produce Blockbuster Contributions to Pro-Obama PAC by Political Capital.

Last year, dueling with comedian Seth Meyers over jokes delivered from the rostrum, Obama played it cool while U.S. special forces prepared for a secret helicopter raid the next day that killed Osama bin Laden hiding in Pakistan.

This year, much of what we know about the dinner so far is that Kim Kardashian is expected to appear, again.

The annual ritual, a convergence of some of the nation’s most powerful politicians, media moguls and mere reporters and some of Hollywood’s stars, starlets and gown-or-tux-stuffing, will play out Saturday night at the Washington Hilton. Think of it as stage competition for Saturday Night Live.

Movie producer Steven Spielberg, a recent regular, is expected. So is actor George Clooney.

The red carpet will feature Elizabeth Banks, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Anna Paquin — you don’t really have to ask, do you? Plus Reese Witherspoon, Diane Keaton, Daniel Day-Lewis and Martha Stewart.

And, of course, the president of the United States, fresh from a televised “slow-jam of the news” with comedian Jimmy Fallon, as the president’s prepared remarks competes with prepared remarks from comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

At that debut three years ago, the president said: “I don’t want to be here tonight, but I knew I had to come — just one more problem that I inherited from George W. Bush.”

Original post is Kardashian, Obama, Spielberg and Kimmel by Political Capital.