Bush Wades Into Shoving Match

Hours after President Bush dove into a fracas to rescue his lead Secret Service agent from a confrontation with Chilean security officials, word surfaced of another security dispute. This time, an elaborate state dinner Sunday night was the casualty.

The dinner planned for Bush and 200 others by Chilean President Ricardo Lagos was reportedly scrapped after Chile was unwilling to accept security measures sought by the U.S. Secret Service, including a demand that all guests pass through metal detectors.

Leading Chilean newspaper El Mercurio reported that the disagreement led Bush and Lagos to instead hold a small "social dinner" with a handful of aides from each side.

On Saturday night, Chilean security barred Bush's bodyguards from accompanying the president into a dinner for Asia-Pacific leaders. As a pushing and shoving match ensued, Bush strode over to the melee, reached into the group and pulled mustachioed agent Nick Trotta out by the lapel.

The president, looking irritated, straightened his shirt cuffs as both men went into the dinner.

Trotta has been taking good-natured ribbing for having to be rescued by the man he's charged with protecting.

The melee and Bush's intervention, caught on tape by the official television camera of the Asia-Pacific Economic cooperation summit, was replayed incessantly on American stations. "Bush the Brave," said a Fox News Channel crawler promoting the upcoming footage.

Though clearly pleased at the macho image Saturday night's events painted of their boss, the White House kept its comments understated. "The president is someone who tends to delegate, but every now and then he's a hands on kind of guy," Bush press secretary Scott McClellan said.

As for the dispute over Sunday's dinner, the White House remained mostly mum, merely confirming the event had been downgraded.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to discuss the matter further, referring reporters to the Chilean government.

On Sunday, Bush good-naturedly posed with 21 other world leaders for the annual closing-day group photo in native garb from the host country.

This year, it was colorful hand-woven ponchos traditional to the Andean mountains. As the poncho-clad leaders assembled into a group, most leaders dutifully — albeit rather hesitantly — gave the cameras a quick wave.

Bush could be seen chatting and chuckling with other leaders, appearing much more at ease in the poncho than he seemed in the high-necked silk tunics handed out in Bangkok at last year's summit. On the other hand, a stone-faced Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't seem so pleased.

The amiable group photo was held in front of a fountain in the picturesque Courtyard of the Orange Trees, on a beautiful late-spring Santiago day.

But the former mint, now the presidential palace since 1846, has seen decidedly less tranquil days. It was the site of the last stand of Salvador Allende, Chile's first socialist president, who was ousted in a U.S.-backed military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

On Sept. 11, 1973, warplanes bombed the presidential palace where Allende had holed up and fired thousands of rounds into the building's three-foot-thick walls. But the building held and the standoff only ended when Allende shot himself with a submachine gun.

No word if any official meetings would take the leaders through that courtyard, where Allende ended his life and his presidency.