Meryl Streep kicks off Washington visit by meeting women senators - Washington Post (blog)

Meryl Streep at "The Iron Lady" screening at Landmark E Street Cinema Tuesday. (Larry French/Getty Images) The Meryl has landed! What's beginning to feel like an official state visit from Meryl Streep — culminating Sunday, when she'll receive the Kennedy Center Honors — kicked off Tuesday. Before she screened her new Margaret Thatcher biopic "The Iron Lady" to political VIPs at E Street Cinema that night, and after the New York Film Critics Circle declared her the year's Best Actress, the star held court at a coffee meeting in the Capitol office of Sen. Barbara Mikulski before an impressive bipartisan gathering: 12 of the 17 women in the U.S. Senate. (Kelly Ayotte, Susan Collins, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kay Hagan, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Boxer, Olympia Snowe.) Streep talked up a recent goodwill trip to China she made with fellow KenCen Honoree Yo-Yo Ma — and, of course, her ongoing lobbying campaign for a spot of land for a National Women's History Museum.

Read earlier: Meryl Streep joins Washington VIP women for Vogue photo shoot, 10/18/11

Meryl Streep on women, history and museums: Kennedy Center Honors Watch, 11/17/11