Remember when Barack Obama bowed before the King of Saudi Arabia at the G-20 summit in London last April? Even though the bow was captured by still and video photographers, the White House denied that it had taken place. “It wasn’t a bow,” an unnamed White House official told the Politico’s Ben Smith. “He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.”

The controversy raged in the blogosphere, but most of the old press ignored the question — especially after the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee injected a bit of partisanship when it said Obama had “paid fealty” to Abdullah with the bow. Obama’s defenders, while not conceding that the president had bowed to the king, said George W. Bush had done the same thing earlier. The issue festered for a few days until a CNN reporter asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs about it: