State dinner guest list includes Washington, Hollywood stars

The guest list for President Barack Obama’s first State Dinner on Tuesday for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh features a heady mix of media personalities, Democratic lawmakers, Indian-Americans, entertainment industry power players and administration officials.

{mosads}Hollywood heavyweights Steven Speilberg, M. Night Shyamalan, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen are all among the guests. Joining them are two of the three major network news anchors, CBS’s Katie Couric and NBC’s Brian Williams, but not Charlie Gibson of ABC. Also representing the fourth estate are New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and CNN personalities Fareed Zakaria and Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Major Obama donors from Chicago at the dinner include real estate heiress Penny Pritzker, James and Paula Crown, and Oprah Winfrey’s best friend and business partner Gayle King. Winfrey is not at the dinner.

A number of lawmakers flew in for the event, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Govs. Ed Rendell (D-Pa.), Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Deval Patrick (D-Mass.), Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) and Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.).

Sens. Bob Casey (D-Penn.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) are all attending, as is one Republican member of the Senate, Indiana’s Richard Lugar. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is not among the expected attendees.

The top three Democratic leaders of the House will also be seated among the more than 400 guests: Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) are all on the list, which does not include any Republican House members, although Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was reportedly invited.

Other notable guests include spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra, General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Nobel Prize recipient Dr. Amartya Sen, author Jhumpa Lahiri, Gen. Colin Powell, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Obama’s mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.