President Bush, who apparently reads People magazine just like the rest of us, is hip to B-level pop culture. According to Fox News, when the president was asked about the large-scale protests that greeted his arrival in England this week, he indicated his appreciation of the phenomenon by acknowledging that

"the last American to cause such a ruckus in the city was illusionist David Blaine, who recently spent 44 days in a self-imposed fast in an elevated plastic box above the Thames River. For the first few days, Blaine's box was pelted with food and the people jeered at him.

'A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me," Bush said, adding that he was grateful to the Queen for interceding and allowing him to stay at Buckingham Palace."

Oh, and one other point about this article. While it's so, so passé to marvel at the amazingly limited worldview of Fox News and its audience, some of their antics continue to provide fresh opportunities for amazement. Such as today's headline (since relegated solely to an appearance on the front page) for this "Blaine-dropping" article: "Bush Gets Royal Treatment."

"Royal treatment" apparently no longer implies "pampering," "adoration" or a waitstaff tending to your every need. This new iteration somehow incorporates negative poll numbers indicating that a majority of British citizens were opposed to and inconvenienced by his visit, as well as managing to invoke the plans for nearly 100,000 protesters to march upon and topple a Saddam-esque effigy of the President in Trafalgar Square on Thursday.