An inconvenient task: Bush to honour Gore (click here)
THE former vice-president Al Gore plans to return to the White House next week, apparently for the first time since leaving office, to be honoured by the man who beat him seven years ago.
The US President, George Bush, will host five American winners of this year's Nobel Prizes in the Oval Office on November 26, including the winner of the Peace Prize, who fell 538 votes short of hosting the event himself.
Mr Bush regularly invites Nobel laureates for a handshake and photograph and decided this year would be no different, even if they include his vanquished rival from 2000.
The Gore camp said the White House went out of its way to accommodate the former vice-president's schedule, even moving the event when there was a conflict with the first proposed date.
Mr Bush personally telephoned Mr Gore on Friday to finalise the arrangements. A Gore adviser acknowledged the awkward nature of the event.
"It's unusual, that's for sure," he said. "But the conversations were good, and the White House has been very gracious about it."
Mr Bush and Mr Gore have never reconciled the bitterness from their showdown, and the adviser believes that Mr Gore has not been back to the White House since leaving as vice-president.
Mr Gore has been a vocal critic of Mr Bush's policies, while the president has been dismissive of his former opponent's work against global warming.
Asked once whether he would see Mr Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Bush had a curt response: "Doubt it".
This could be the chance to change that. "I'm sure he would love to give the slide show to the president," the Gore adviser said.
