Socialite Joanne Herring Kissed Tom Hanks, Caused 9/11, Thinks Christ Is A Manslut
While socialite Arden Wohl has been making experimental films in a thick cloud of marijuana smoke, social queen Tinsley Mortimer has been sewing handbags until her fingers bleed in the candlelit apse of her cathedral of love that she shares with Topper, and Lydia Hearst is safeguarding her legacy by means of idiocy, some old lady socialite named Joanne Herring in Texas has been keeping busy too! And in ways much, much, much awesomer (and maybe more destructive?) than her younger New York fellow upper-crusters.
According to Rush & Molloy, that new film by creator of the worst T.V. series ever Aaron Sorkin called Charlie Wilson's War and also according to anyone with access to the internet and/or facts, Ms. Herring was instrumental in the United States' decision to launch a covert CIA operation in Afghanistan, supplying the mujahideen with weapons with which to combat the Soviets after their 1979 invasion.
That year, Ms. Herring smuggled herself, her son and a filmmaker into Afghanistan and documented the Soviet atrocities. She took the footage to Washington where her husband Charlie Wilson, a US Congressman, transferred more than 300 million Pentagon dollars to the mujahideen.
Aaron Sorkin, in his usual dumb, literal, obvious Aaron Sorkin way, suggests that United States actions in Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s had some causation with the events of September 11, 2001. (No kidding!) The last shot of the movie (starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts!) was supposed to have been "a shot of the Pentagon in flames, implying that Herring and Wilson had abetted Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda crew."
But Sorkin rolled over in the face of Herring's objections and that scene was cut. Also:
Herring also didn't cotton to the way Sorkin had Roberts swearing, spouting evangelical screeds and engaging in martini-fueled romps with Hanks.
"I didn't like the cursing, the drinking, the blatant sex," says the 78-year-old thrice-married Houston socialite, philanthropist and former talk show host. "They turned me into a kooky, hypocritical tart."
Later, Tom Hanks asks for a kiss and "Herring admitted that, just like in the movie, she wore slinky dresses to meet men in power. 'That's the only way anyone would listen to me,' she laughs. 'I'm a Christian, but even Christ liked to have a good time.' Amen.