Obama praises Anne Hathaway, mingles with Sorkin, Jerry Springer

By Matt Donnelly

Aug. 7, 2012 12 AM PT

President Obama got the Hollywood treatment in Connecticut on Monday as movie mogul Harvey Weinstein opened his home for a swanky fundraiser in support the president’s reelection campaign.

Weinstein and fashion-designer wife Georgina Chapman welcomed about 60 guests to their Westport digs with a co-host committee that included actress Anne Hathaway, writer Aaron Sorkin and Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

After thanking his host couple for “doing so much for us” during the current election and the last one, Obama launched into praise for Hathaway’s portrayal of Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“I did get a chance to see Batman. And she was the best thing in it. That’s just my personal opinion,” Obama told the crowd, according to the pool report.

Additional guests included former talk show host Jerry Springer (How did Wintour let that fly? Is money that tight?) and Joanne Woodward, widow of actor Paul Newman.

“Joanne and Paul ... just embodied the American spirit in so many ways,” Obama said. “And their love story and the way they took so many people under their wing and helped so many people, I think made them something more important than just folks in film.”

The Weinstein property boasts an ocean view, pool and badminton court. Dinner was held to the right of the main entrance, with six tables filling a dimly lighted room with an arrangement of pink dahlias as centerpiece. A bookcase on one wall displayed two golden Oscar statuettes.

Wintour, no stranger to fundraising for the president, rested her trademark sunglasses just above her place setting. Sorkin, show runner of HBO’s “The Newsroom,” received props from POTUS as well.

“Aaron Sorkin, who writes the way every Democrat in Washington wished they spoke,” Obama joked. “Aaron, thank you.”

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