Let’s compare and contrast the reporting of two Washington newspapers on the arrival of the queen.

The first is the front-page story of today’s Washington Times:

Queen Elizabeth II arrived at the White House yesterday for a state visit overflowing with pomp and pageantry, complete with a 21-gun salute and the Bush administration’s first white-tie-and-tails dinner last night.

On a cool and cloudless day, trumpeters at the South Portico of the White House heralded the queen’s arrival, and soldiers of the U.S. Army’s Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps — dressed in black tricorn hats, white wigs and red regimental coats — piped a Continental Army tune as they marched across the South Lawn.

“Your Majesty, the United States receives with honor the sovereign of the United Kingdom. We welcome back to the White House a good person, a strong leader for a great ally,” President Bush said.

But the president fumbled his effusive praise when he told thousands of guests gathered on the lawn that the stately matron of the United Kingdom — queen for 55 years — had first visited in the 18th century.

“You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17–,” the president said, standing just a few feet from her majesty. Catching himself quickly, he corrected the date to 1976, but it was too late. The crowd of more than 7,000 dignitaries and guests spread across the lawn tittered softly, then broke into raucous laughter. Mr. Bush paused, then looked sheepishly toward the queen, who smiled at the leader of one of Britain’s former colonies.

Looking back to the throng, Mr. Bush deadpanned: “She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child.” More roars of laughter erupted in the crowd, who waved tiny Union Jack and Old Glory flags handed out at the gates.

Now we go to the Dana Milbank’s editorial in the Washington Post, titled: “The President Learns It’s Good to be the King”:

With etiquette handbooks at the ready, the White House was in a high state of faux pas alert for Queen Elizabeth II’s visit yesterday. Still, President Bush lasted only about 14 minutes into the state arrival ceremony before implying that the British monarch is 300 years old.

“You’ve dined with 10 U.S. presidents,” Bush said on the South Lawn with the 81-year-old sovereign at his side. “You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in seventeen s –” — here the president caught himself — “in nineteen seventy-six.”

The crowd laughed. Bush looked at Her Majesty — and winked. Elizabeth smiled politely and said something that sounded like “some year,” or “you’re near” or even “oh, dear.”

“She gave me a look that only a mother could give a child,” a quick-thinking Bush reported back to the assembly.

At least he didn’t credit her with signing the Magna Carta.

In the days before yesterday’s state visit, the talk was all about how the regular-guy president disliked all the pomp that comes with a royal function. Don’t believe it. As they say in Texas: Balderdash and poppycock.

True, the state dinner last night forced Bush to stay up beyond his bedtime, and wearing tails is a hassle for pretty much every man who doesn’t sing with the Whiffenpoofs. Also, such events bring bad memories: At a similar pageant last year, the Chinese president was heckled by a Falun Gong protester and the White House announcer confused China and Taiwan.

But the president seemed to be enjoying himself mightily yesterday. After Bush and the first lady took an impromptu walk with the queen and Prince Philip across Pennsylvania Avenue to Blair House, White House pool reporter Tara Copp of the Austin American-Statesman reported that “the president was in as sunny a mood as the sky above.”

And why shouldn’t he be sunny? The queen would not bicker with him about the Baghdad security plan, and there would be no prickly news conference in which he would be asked about the Newsweek poll putting his support at 28 percent, equal to Jimmy Carter’s in 1979. Yesterday gave Bush a chance to put aside the messiness of being head of government and enjoy the trappings of being head of state: cannons on the Ellipse, an Army fife-and-drum corps, a troop review and red geraniums on the South Portico.

Same story, two differing ways of telling it. Even in a non-political event the WaPo had to get in the political digs.

Admittedly the front page story in the WaPo was a bit more diplomatic in its reporting.

And the New York Times was gracious in its reporting.