The President Learns It's Good to Be the King

Roberts followed up aggressively: "I mean, truly, everyone is buzzing around here."

"That's right, they are," the first lady confessed.

The two briefly discussed Bush's 28 percent standing and the Virginia Tech shootings, before turning back to the president's consent to a white-tie dress code ("He was a very good sport") and the pea soup for dinner ("You'll really like it, Robin").

"Oh, I can't wait," the questioner responded. "And the lamb, always a favorite."

"We're doing a fish course, too."

The president couldn't help injecting a bit of his political agenda into the royal visit. "We're resisting those who murder the innocent to advance a hateful ideology, whether they kill in New York or London, or Kabul or Baghdad," he read with the queen at his side.

That met with a dissonant answer from Queen Elizabeth, who read: "A state visit provides us with a brief opportunity to step back from our current preoccupations to reflect on the very essence of our relationship."

But enough with the heavy stuff. Tony Snow, the president's press secretary, announced at his briefing that he would take no questions about the queen's conversation with Bush. "We're going to allow them to go ahead and have very pleasant conversations," he said. "It's a pretty cool day, you know?"

In lieu of news, the White House sent out a flurry of press releases about the state dinner: a guest list (Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning!) at 4:03 p.m.; a dinner menu (Dover sole amandine!) at 4:07 p.m.; and the East Room entertainment (Itzhak Perlman!) at 4:08 p.m.

Some of the royal visit's pleasures were inaccessible to the president; he would not, for example, taste the dinner red wine, the $200-per-bottle Peter Michael 2003 Les Pavots, with its "notes of melted licorice." But there was much to raise the president's spirits, including the silver dish the queen gave him with the royal cypher, the presidential seal and a Texas lone star. The magnanimous president even brought out the Clinton china for dinner.

The informal Bush enjoyed the formality so much that he even took time out to torment an underdressed photographer. After his walk with the queen after lunch, Bush got the photographer, Newsweek's Charles Ommanney, to agree that it was "a special day" at the White House. "Then why," the president asked, "didn't you wear something other than hand-me-down clothes?"