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 Editorials | Opinions | May 2007 
Right Royal Glare as Bush Slips Up Again
 Sheryl Gay Stolberg - NYTimes
| | The Queen is unamused as Mr Bush greets her before a state dinner at the White House. (AFP) |
Presidents come and go, but for more than half a century, the Queen has always been the queen.
So it was perhaps no surprise that Washington went a little gaga as the Queen and Prince Philip began an official two-day visit to the capital.
The White House was decorated to perfection for a white-tie dinner, with President George Bush and his wife Laura playing host to the royal couple and 130 other A-list guests. But the morning was reserved for the masses — or, at least, masses with the kind of connections that warranted an invitation to the formal arrival ceremony on the South Lawn on Monday.
More than 7000 ticket-holders began lining up at 7am. At 10.56am, the Queen arrived, a tiny wisp of a woman in a black and white hat, white gloves, white jacket and black skirt. Drums rolled and trumpets blared. There was a gasp in the crowd, and a squeal: "I see her! I see the Queen!"
It was a day for pomp and circumstance, punctuated by a presidential slip of the tongue that lightened the moment during Mr Bush's welcoming remarks as he reminded the 81-year-old Queen that she had already dined with 10 American presidents.
"You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17,s... — here the President caught himself — "in 1976." The crowd laughed, and the President and the Queen turned to each other for a long, silent gaze. Mr Bush turned back to the crowd: "She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child," Mr Bush said as the crowd burst into laughter.
Mr Bush had received such a look once before in the Queen's presence — from his own mother, in 1991, when the first president Bush and his wife hosted a state dinner for the Queen. According to several accounts, including Mr Bush's own, Barbara Bush told the Queen that she had seated her son away from Her Majesty, for fear he might make a wisecrack.
Then, to his mother's horror, he did, telling the Queen that he was his family's black sheep before asking, "Who's yours?"
The Queen, apparently not amused, replied tartly: "None of your business."
For the beleaguered Administration, this royal visit is a welcome break. The dinner guest list offered a few surprises: former secretary of state Colin Powell who has openly criticised US tactics used to interrogate terror suspects; and Senator Trent Lott, who lost his leadership position in 2002 after a White House-orchestrated coup.
The dinner was the first white-tie event of the Bush Administration, and Laura Bush confessed that she had to enlist Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to talk Mr Bush into wearing formal attire. "We thought if we were ever going to have a white-tie event," she said, "this would be the one." |
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