'Conference' synonymous with 'meeting'?

President Bush's top diplomat tripped over careful White House terminology Thursday, repeatedly calling an upcoming Mideast peace gathering a "conference," instead of the Bush administration's preferred, lower-key "meeting."

"See, there I just did it again," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said by way of correcting her second reference to "conference" in as many minutes. "Meeting," she emphasized.

While neither term is as freighted as the S-word, "summit," White House message minders think that calling the fall session a conference might raise expectations too high. Bush announced the gathering during a speech in July, and Rice's four-day Mideast trip this week was partly to gauge support among skittish Arab states for attendance.

Rice, a fluent Russian speaker, had a solution. She skipped the pesky English words altogether and referred to the session by the Russian word for meeting, "vstrechaya."

"It's a vstrechaya," Rice said. "Nyet conferenciya."