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Bush Amuses the Queen
Look, it’s clear President Bush meant well. He made a tiny slip of the tongue – saying that Queen Elizabeth II took part in the bicentennial celebration in 1776, rather than 1976 – and then he tried to acknowledge his error with good humor by saying, “She gave me a look only a mother can give a child.” But I fear that, etiquette-wise, when you open by saying a woman’s dined with ten U.S. Presidents (which, let’s face it, already draws attention to the fact that she’s, um, of a certain age) and follow up by implying that she’s been around for two hundred and thirty years, your best way out of the hole is probably not comparing her to your mother.
