Vanity Fair's Cover Story Goes to Pres

It took the combined efforts of Bono and Karl Rove to get President Bush on the cover of Vanity Fair. No small feat, given how critical the magazine has been of . . . well, just about everything about his administration. Guest editor Bono assembled an all-star cast including Bush and Condoleezza Rice for the cover -- actually, 20 different covers -- of the July issue on Africa, which hits newsstands later this week.

The idea was to create a visual chain of VIPs like Muhammad Ali, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Barack Obama, George Clooney, Madonna, Brad Pitt and Desmond Tutu -- all linked by their common interest in the continent; the U2 rocker-activist worked personally with Rove to snag Dubya. "Bono's choice, not mine, as you might imagine," writes VF Editor Graydon Carter in the magazine. "He gives the commander in chief high marks on his Africa policies."

Bush and Rice, who last appeared on the magazine in 2002, were photographed together in D.C. by Annie Leibovitz two months ago. The other super-busy, globe-trotting celebs? Since each appears on two covers, their portraits had to be Photoshopped together. "These are more photo illustrations than photographs," says Leibovitz, "but the point was to unite people for a common purpose."

FOREIGN AFFAIRS . . .

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Princes William and Harry lost a last-ditch campaign yesterday to prevent a British TV channel from airing graphic images of Diana's fatal car crash, including one that shows the Princess of Wales receiving oxygen from a French doctor. The princes' private secretary called the broadcast a "gross disrespect to their mother's memory," but execs of Britain's Channel 4, citing "legitimate public interest," said the documentary, scheduled to air today, will include pictures taken immediately after the accident 10 years ago. "These photographs are an important and accurate eyewitness record of how events unfolded after the crash," according to the company's statement.

HEY, ISN'T THAT . . . ?

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• Don Rumsfeld and his former No. 3 at the Pentagon, Douglas Feith, walking together down L Street yesterday in heated discussion, wildly gesticulating, and no, we couldn't hear a word they said. (Did you? reliablesource@washpost.com)

• Suzanne Whang, host of HGTV's "House Hunters," lunching with a bunch of mortgage bankers at Dupont's Sesto Senso. The Arlington native, so Zenlike on TV, got all "When Harry Met Sally" with her order, mix-and-matching the pappardelle from one entree with the mushroom, tomatoes, spinach and pine nuts from other parts of the menu, and the non-smoked mozzarella, please, not the smoked.

• A passel of Creative Coalition types getting coffee to go in the lobby of the Park Hyatt yesterday -- Richard Schiff (bearded guy from "The West Wing"), Wendie Malick (skinny lady from "Just Shoot Me"), Kerry Washington (pretty ingenue from "Ray") and the omnipresent Joe Pantoliano, all here doing the lobbying thing. So that's what they're up to these days!

LOVE, ETC.

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• Split: Larry and Laurie David have called it quits after 14 years of marriage, confirmed her publicist yesterday, calling the separation "completely amicable." The "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" creator, 59, and his "An Inconvenient Truth" producer spouse, 49, were in Washington for April's White House Correspondents' Association dinner. He scowled; she and Sheryl Crow got into a high-profile spat with presidential adviser Karl Rove about global warming -- but no, the breakup has nothing to do with her eco-activism, said the rep. How long before he trades in the Prius for a Hummer?

• Dating: John Ramsey, the widowed dad of the late JonBenet, and Beth Holloway Twitty, the separated mother of missing teen Natalee Holloway. The New York Daily News reports the two met at a fundraiser last year and have been spotted holding hands and kissing; Ramsey calls it "a friendship of respect and admiration."