So, I had lunch with Sam Donaldson yesterday. I sat right beside him in a booth at The Palm. He ordered tomato juice and a tomato and feta (I think) salad. He wanted lemonade, but they didn’t have it.

Why, you might ask, did I eat lunch with Sam Donaldson? It is a more than valid question, but the answer is that I don’t really know. I came to work yesterday, just like most every day, and a few minutes after the morning editorial meeting I see Sam Donaldson walk into the newsroom. He shook hands with a few of my co-workers, his voice booming and strangely soothing. He took the office of the managing editor briefly to do a telephone interview. He spoke very loudly and clearly, rarely stopping. The managing editor’s office was open and just ten feet from my desk. When he hung up from his phone interview he looked at me and said, "Don’t look at me like that. It’s a living."

Later the general manager introduced me to him before he went before the cameras to tape a new show he is doing. We spoke briefly about blogging and Dan Rather and all that, and I felt pretty lucky to have met him.

Ten minutes later I’m back at my desk when the phone rings. The GM asked if I wanted to go along with one of the assignment editors to lunch with Mr. Donaldson. I thought of my bean soup and cornbread in the stinky break room fridge and immediately said yes.

Lunch was totally surreal. We all just peppered him with questions about history and politics and media, when we got a chance to, that is. Sam Donaldson has the astounding ability to talk at great length on a wealth of subjects. This may lead you to believe he was boring or self-indulgent or annoying, but he was fascinating. Oh, the stories he told. The man confessed that he had a big mouth, and so those stories are not stories I can publish here. But it is safe to say the topics spanned from Hillary in ‘08 to the Civil War. Only occasionally would there be a lull in the conversation, but every time there was I expected him to say, "Diane…"

Before we left, after two hours of conversation, he shook my hand and said I was his "favorite blog queen." If that is not a pull quote, then I don’t know what is.