Summit Math Test Stumps Organizers, Clinton

DENVER — Maybe it was an international hazing ritual for the new guy.

As world leaders at the Summit of the Eight gathered in the Denver Public Library on Saturday morning, recently elected British Prime Minister Tony Blair approached the large wooden circular table only to discover he had no chair.

Aides scrambled to locate the well-stuffed, high-backed chair that should have accommodated the Labor leader at his first global summit but found only a smaller one, which made him look, well, something less than dignified compared with his counterparts from Europe, Asia and North America.

Clinton’s turn to be embarrassed came before the official start of the summit. During a scene-setting address Thursday, Clinton tried to use statistics--which he often throws into his speeches--to make the case for international trade. “We are now slightly less than one-fifth of the world’s population but we have slightly more than 20% of the world’s wealth and income,” the president said.

Oops. Of course, the United States has 5% of the world population, not one-fifth, which would be 20%. Otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a point. Without realizing the error, Clinton went on to say, “This is not a matter requiring Einstein to calculate.”

Then again, Einstein failed high-school math.