A President, a Prime Minister, and The King walk into a bar...

President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi were in my neck of the woods today. Graceland, civil rights, barbecue. Yep... that's the quintessential Memphis experience. Oh, and they served fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches on Air Force One. So classy. :)

I wish I hadn't been tied down to the office and had been able to be part of the media feeding frenzy. Koizumi seems like a fairly rock star-esque kind of guy, and it would've been cool to see him in person. However, as The Flyer points out, only four media reps were allowed with the official touring party, and nobody — including little ol' me — received a full itinerary until Thursday morning.

So I rushed to jump through a few governmental hoops to get open press credentials for one of my reporters, and he came back with some great shots — err, photos. I make the distinction because said reporter forwarded an e-mail from one of his former editors which read, "And for God's sake, don't tell people you're going to shoot the president. Always say 'photograph.' Just trying to help out."