PITTSBURGH -- From the outset, it was clear who was in charge and who was the second banana when George W. Bush and John McCain met yesterday. The food in the hotel suite where they talked said as much: Coffee. Bagels. Pastries.
"Uh, no donuts," observed McCain, who subsisted for months aboard his campaign bus by feeding a craving for his favorite breakfast food.
In spite of the apparent oversight and continued chilliness between the two men, Bush got what he wanted from the private meeting with his vanquished rival. McCain emerged from the session and, at a somewhat awkward news conference, delivered a line the Republican nominee-to-be has waited two months to hear.
"I endorse Governor Bush," he said, though he had to be prodded by a reporter's question to use the word "endorsement." McCain lightheartedly repeated the line five times for good measure.
"By the way, I enthusiastically accept," chimed in Bush, who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Arizona senator, grinning.
The meeting may have put to rest any possibility that McCain would get the second spot on the Republican ticket. Bush made no attempt to change McCain's mind when the senator reiterated in private his standard comment that he wasn't interested in the job of vice president.
There was no embrace and only the briefest of handshakes as the two finished facing the cameras. McCain dutifully delivered his lines of praise, without much warmth or enthusiasm.
McCain's comment, in an interview last week, that he might not actually endorse Bush yesterday had created some doubt about what he intended to say.
But McCain, agreeing with a reporter's suggestion, said he had decided to "take the medicine now."
Perhaps tellingly, both men described the meeting in the arid language that diplomats often use to mask disagreement.
Bush called it "a very frank discussion." McCain remarked that it had been "a very useful and helpful conversation."
Bush was sipping coffee in the suite at the William Penn hotel in downtown Pittsburgh when McCain arrived shortly before 8 a.m., according to Karen Hughes, the Bush campaign's communications director.
After aides withdrew, the two men made small talk about mutual friends and associates, including Bush's father and former President Ronald Reagan. They chatted about issues, including taxes and a campaign-finance system that has lurched out of control. And they got around to taking care of some substantive political business.
