New York, September 22-28, 2007 – While navigating our way between Kanye West, Andy Samberg and George Clooney this week, we kept tripping over world leaders all over New York, in town for the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.  President Bush’s stay at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel forced guests at Tuesday’s Elton John AIDS Foundation gala through a security gauntlet.   

Former president and hopeful first husband Bill Clinton took advantage of the swarm of powerful folks – and added to the city’s congestion nightmare – by throwing his global initiative at the same time.  Clinton one-upped the U.N. by snagging one of their ambassadors, Angelina Jolie, and her man Brad Pitt for his do, while the humanitarian actors snubbed the GA Summit.  (Or, you know, they weren’t invited to the U.N..)

Clinton’s global bash was much glitzier over all, mixing Hollywood types in with Al Gore, Desmond Tutu and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.  He even invited famous marijuana dealer Mary Louise Parker to his opening night reception at the Museum of Modern Art.  Jessica Biel also popped in, but where was Justin?

When we were awake at the U.N. sessions, we noticed that President Ortega of Nicaragua was the most engaging speaker, and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad way exceeded his allotted time limit.  U.S. President George Bush arrived late; he seemed distracted, like a kid with ADD, and kept passing notes to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  After his speech, the joke floating around among U.N. journalists was that they were waiting for Bush’s speech to be translated into English.