Last Friday, two days before the conclusion of the most closely contested Oscar race in recent memory, a dozen people from various parts of the entertainment industry sat down to lunch at the home of Arianna Huffington in Brentwood, the New York Times reports.

Would the Oscar go to “The Departed” or “Babel,” Martin Scorsese or Clint Eastwood?

The topic barely came up.

Instead, the conversation was all about the media mogul David Geffen’s drive-by maiming of the Clintons earlier in the week in remarks he made to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. For over an hour, the people at the table debated his decision to take on Hillary Clinton, who is pursuing the Democratic nomination for president.

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