WASHINGTON, May 17 U.S. President George Bush tried to replay a joke he pulled on Queen Elizabeth in an appearance Thursday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"He has led the British people for a long time -- since 1797," Bush quipped at the start of a joint White House Rose Garden news conference to chuckles from the press corps. When the queen attended a state dinner at the White House marking the establishment of the first British colony in the Americans 400 years ago, Bush started to say she had helped the United States celebrate its independence in 1776 and then corrected himself and said 1976 -- the year of the U.S. bicentennial.
At the time, he said the queen gave him a look "only a mother could give a child."
Copyright 2007 by UPI
