Opinion: President Bush to attend daughter Jenna’s wedding despite no pizza

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President Bush left the White House Thursday. Laura Bush was already in Texas. Virtually everyone in one of the most pervasive political clans in modern American times is gathering in Crawford at this hour for the very private wedding Saturday evening of Henry Hager and Jenna Bush (the blond one).

As The Ticket noted not long ago, unless they’re hawking a book or something, the Bush twins (each named for one grandmother) have an aversion to the public political life.

The couple haven’t even announced their secret honeymoon location. So hundreds of photographers with long lenses and squadrons of rented helicopters have no idea where to hover. We do know the about-to-be newlyweds have purchased a townhouse in Baltimore.

So there will be virtually no news coverage of the outdoor evening wedding (timed to avoid the central Texas heat, even in May).

White House officials hinted there may be a few ...

photos of the couple released, but probably not until Mother’s Day. Which will get them better play on a slow news day. So don’t wait up.

However, the big outstanding question about the non-White House wedding concerns pizza.

A Pizza Hut spokesman has officially confirmed through diplomatic channels that the company’s offer to help cater the wedding of the First Twin Daughters’ first marriage is sincere. Publicity stunt? Who would think of such a thing?

‘It’s the real deal,’ said Pizza Hut spokesman Chris Fuller, who like most Americans was not invited to the president’s sprawling ranch. ‘The letter was sent from our president to the president this week.’

The thinly veiled, thin-crust offer was reported widely on the Internet Thursday and then picked up by the snarky satirical political website Wonkette.

The offer on company letterhead was signed by Hut president, Scott Bergren, congratulates Bush on his daughter’s marriage and offers to provide the pizza chain’s ‘Pizza Mia’™ to hungry guests for free at the end of the evening. The letter also makes clear that the company would provide ‘any of Jenna’s favorite toppings.’

If accepted, Fuller said, the offer would be a public relations coup for the company based in Dallas, where the Bush presidential library will be built and a little more than 100 miles up the road from the Bush ranch near Crawford.

It would also associate the first presidential family wedding in a generation with a greasy informal cuisine with dripping cheese usually more connected to family meals and college dorm binges.

‘It has not yet been accepted,’ Fuller said to the shock of everyone nearby. Don’t wait up for that either.

He added that the offer was not to cater the wedding itself. ‘I’m sure that’s been taken care of,’ Fuller said. But maybe the guests would like a free slice of pizza on their way home.

‘People [would] have been throwing back all night, two-stepping, whatever they do,’ Fuller explained. ‘We want to give them pizza on the way out.’

Fuller, who is married by the way, did not invite the Bushes to his Texas wedding, nor did he serve food or booze because -- as is customary in parts of the Lone Star state -- there was no formal reception.

The brides’ fathers there are not heard to complain.

--James Janega and Andrew Malcolm

James Janega writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau.