Wednesday’s meeting with BP executives had the feel of naughty schoolchildren who had been called into the principal’s office. Just the night before, President Barack Obama was lambasting the oil behemoth. “We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused,” the president said. By the following morning, the shamed executives, including CEO Tony Hayward, found themselves across the table from Obama being told just how much it would cost. The two sides agreed on a $20 billion fund, independently administered, which would compensate businesses and residents harmed by the Gulf oil spill. BP was only scheduled for 20 minutes of presidential face time.
Pete Souza / White House
Last summer’s most awkward White House moment happened over a couple of beers, when President Obama invited Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Police Sgt. James Crowley to Washington in order to help bygones be bygones after Crowley arrested Gates at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home. Gates’ daughter Elizabeth wrote in The Daily Beast about her family finding common cause with the Crowleys: “They were just like us: a young family groomed to perfection, waiting to learn how to get those damn cameramen off their lawn and to put this sensationalized hell behind them.”
Alex Brandon / AP Photo
On December 21, 1970, rock royal Elvis Presley scored himself an invite to the Nixon White House. Presley told Nixon that he wanted to become a “Federal Agent at Large,” in order to help the president battle the countercultural forces at work in American society. Presley presented Nixon with a commemorative World War II Colt 45. Nixon sent a thank-you note.
White House / AP Photo
Barack Obama is a Chicago White Sox fan, and don’t you forget it. The beat-up Sox hat he wore on the campaign trail which proved so embarrassing to team brass that they tried to get him to wear a new one. (He declined.) So when the New York Yankees came to town bearing their 27th World Series championship trophy, Obama reminded the assembled players how their approach to winning had made them unlikeable. “That attitude, that success,” the president said, “has always made the Yankees easy to love—and, let’s face it, easy to hate as well.”
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo
George W. Bush proved somewhat less of a gentleman when he greeted Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the octogenarian ruler of Britain, with a sly wink. She was in Washington for a state visit in 2007, and the wink came as Bush’s second stumble during the royal encounter. Earlier, the president seemed to imply that the Queen’s first tour of the U.S. came back in 1776. Bush wasn’t all back-country casual for the occasion. Under wife Laura’s instructions, the dinner in the Queen’s honor was white tie.
Fiona Hanson, PA Photos / Landov
Recalling that collision between Nixon and Elvis—two American icons brought together by White House magic—Barack Obama found himself on the other end of a handshake with Khloe Kardashian last year. The reality television star, who can be found most weeks on the cover of Life & Style magazine showing off her “bikini body,” was at the White House because her husband Lamar Odom was a member of the 2009 NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers. Kardashian couldn’t contain her excitement. “I just meet [sic] Obama with my husband!:),” she wrote on Twitter. Obama’s excitement at meeting the television star went unreported. But according to the Daily Mail, White House aides recognized Kardashian’s star power. When they spotted her, Kardashian was moved up in the audience in order to create a better photo op.
Alex Brandon / AP Photo
A hot dog lunch doesn’t fix everything, but when it comes with a side of presidential endorsement, it seems to be enough to forget the past for a while. In March 2008, President Bush invited John McCain to the White House to offer his smiling support during McCain’s run at the Oval Office. But eight years earlier, Bush and his camp had done everything in their power to ruin McCain’s bid. During the 2000 South Carolina primary, a vicious smear campaign had some voters believing that McCain’s wife Cindy was a drug addict and that the couple’s adopted daughter was the product of his infidelity. Yet, McCain vocally supported Bush later that year and again in 2004. It was Bush’s turn to return the favor.
Ron Edmonds / AP Photo
George W. Bush was never one for excessive flattery, and that seemed to rattle the turkey he pardoned before Thanksgiving in 2001. At the time, Bush said that “our guest of honor looks a little nervous. Nobody's told him yet that I'm going to give him a pardon.” Whether it was jitters or an inflated sense of familiarity, the turkey, named Liberty, took a peck at the president’s midriff to produce this awkward moment.
Tim Sloan, AFP / Getty Images
In the middle of the 2008 campaign, as Wall Street imploded, both candidates took a side-trip to the White House to discuss the financial crisis. President Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama had a tense meeting where they discussed the $700 billion bailout package. Obama had a full understanding of the issues at hand, according to Jonathan Alter’s book, The Promise. If McCain did too, he didn’t show it. “I’ll just listen,” McCain said. Later on, Obama pressed McCain again: “I’d like to hear what Senator McCain has to say, since we haven’t heard from him yet.” When he did speak, McCain was obviously upset and under-informed. Soon, parties from all sides began chiming in until Bush stood up and announced, “Well, I’ve clearly lost control of this meeting. It’s over.”
TIM SLOAN
President Obama made no secret of his disappointment with Hamid Karzai’s handling of Afghanistan. Earlier in the year, leaked cables from the U.S. ambassador in Kabul painted a stark portrait of America’s perception of Karzai’s leadership ability. According to the diplomatic exchange, the U.S. thought Kazai was “not an adequate strategic partner” and “continue[d] to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden.” So when Karzai visited the White House in May 2010, Obama had some more tough questions for him about corruption, vast inefficiency, and Karzai’s rapprochement with Iran. It certainly did not go over too well when Karzai spoke of the tensions between the U.S. and Iran, saying he wished "both countries the best."
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat died in 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated a team of ex-presidents to represent the United States at the funeral. But before he sent off Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon to Egypt, he invited them to the White House first for cocktails. The living former presidents would not meet again at the White House again for over 17 years, by which time the cast was very different. Only Jimmy Carter attended both meetings.
White House / AP Photo
So much for not touching the Royal Family. When Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II visited the White House in 1976, they had lunch with President Ford and his wife, Betty, at a small, square table set for four. But later that evening, at a state dinner attended by Bob Hope and Telly Savalas—the Queen was apparently a fan—the president and the Queen shared a single, awkward dance during which the Queen’s purse stayed looped around her wrist.
Ricardo Thomas, Gerald R. Ford Library / AP Photo
Until Barack Obama did it in January, no president in recent memory had gathered his predecessors for the sole purpose of gaining advice. At his request, President Bush invited Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton to lunch at the White House, packing a lot of egos into the deceptively small Oval Office. When the press was allowed in, they all stood together, except for Carter who stayed off to the side. The conversation stayed light, and out of earshot, until Clinton, looking at Bush’s yellow-splashed carpet, blurted out, “I looooove this rug!”
J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo
