Chris Nelson shares some fun insider gossip in today’s Nelson Report about Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick’s recent “Panda Diplomacy” at a “Principals Meeting” in the White House:
BUSH NAMES…in the amusing gossip department, we hear Deputy Secretary of State Bob Zoellick was presented with a large stuffed Panda at a Principals Meeting at the White House yesterday by an unknown assailant dressed in a laboratory smock and rubber sterile gloves (you remember the photos which went around the world of Zoellick embracing a baby panda in China, showing Zoelleck being forced to wear gloves by his Chinese hosts?).
The White House drama unfolded when the “attendant” burst into the room asking for “Dr. Zoellick”??
Startled, Zoellick raised his hand and identified himself, and the masked man said “wait”, disappeared into the corridor, returned with a large stuffed Panda, rushed over to the still bemused Zoellick and then took several incriminating photographs.
“Evidently, the place was in hysterics. . .but,rumor has it that Zoellick was not amused,” our source gleefully reports.
— Steve Clemons
