Because Ordinarily He’s Out Clearing Brush!
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jim Rutenberg seem to have mistaken King Ralph for reality:
How does George W. Bush, a towel-snapping Texan who puts his feet on the coffee table, drinks water straight from the bottle and was once caught on tape talking with food in his mouth prepare for a state dinner with the queen?
With tips from an etiquette guide, of course — and a little gentle prodding from his wife.
The White House is atwitter over the visit on Monday by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. This is the first visit by the queen since 1991, when Mr. Bush’s father was president. White House aides say the state dinner in her honor is not only the social event of the year, but also of the entire Bush presidency.
It will be closely watched by the social elite for its collision of cultures — Texas swagger meets British prim. Dinner attire is white tie and tails, the first and, perhaps, only white-tie affair of the Bush administration. The president was said to be none too keen on that, but bowed to a higher power, his wife.
Wow; I hope that George “Cletus” Bush doesn’t use the salad fork to slaughter a hog during dinner. I see the potential for high comedy! Isn’t this part of an unused Parker and Stone script
for “That’s My Bush!”?
Let’s review: George W. Bush is not a country bumpkin. He is not a stranger to formal affairs. He didn’t spend most of his youth clearing brush. He knows how to use all of the forks at the table. He’s not going to accidentally hock a loogie into the Queen’s hair while aiming for the White House spitoon. He probably even knows how to tie a bow-tie. He is a very wealthy man, the product of a long line of New England aristocracy. His heritage and upbringing are every bit as WASP-ish as that of John Kerry. The Queen has been dining with Presidents since Eisenhower, and apart from his father Dubya is probably the most aristocratic of any of them. The central achievement of his political life has been disguising all of that beneath a thin veneer of “rustic Texan”, but the New York Times shouldn’t have respected that nonsense in 1999, and shouldn’t take it at all seriously now.
It’s all affect. I suppose that’s all he has left.