Washington - Former US vice president Al Gore, now a celebrity environmentalist, finally returned to the White House on Monday - at least for a brief moment to honour his Nobel Peace Prize. President George W Bush, who defeated Gore for the presidency in 2000 after a contest that went to the US Supreme Court, invited his bitter rival to a ceremony for 2007 Nobel winners. But Bill Clinton's one-time deputy got decidedly special treatment.
In the midst of three days of high-profile Middle East peace talks in the US, Bush hosted Gore for a private talk in the Oval Office before the ceremony. Not just that: Bush rescheduled the ceremony to suit Gore's globe-trotting travels.
And Gore seemed quite presidential on what was believed to be his first White House trip since the Clinton administration, clapping Bush on the back and ushering him toward the door after Bush welcomed him outside on a chilly afternoon.
"President Bush called vice president Gore and personally asked him to attend," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We did have to rearrange the dates to make sure that he was going to be in town."
She refused to speculate on what the two men would discuss.
Gore, 59, shared this year's peace prize with the UN scientific panel on climate change, which has written a series of reports that have focused worldwide attention on the perils of climate change.
Gore's transformation into one of the world's most prominent voices against global warming peaked this year with his Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, followed by the Nobel prize in October.
His calls for binding cuts in US greenhouse-gas emissions put him at odds with Bush, who favours voluntary measures.
But Bush was "very pleased" that Gore and his wife, Tipper, planned to attend Monday's event, Perino said.
