When the Dalai Lama met privately with President Bush at the White House earlier this week, seriously ticking off the Chinese government in the process, he may have unwittingly given America’s politicians a swell new idea on how to deal with the news media.

Speaking to a media pack gathered outside his Washington hotel, the spiritual leader of Tibet’s Buddhists was asked by a reporter whether he had a message for Chinese President Hu Jintao, who reportedly was furious that Bush and the Congress had made their usual fuss over him.

According to an Associated Press report on the impromptu news conference, the Tibetan religious leader playfully patted the reporter on the cheek and replied, “You are not a representative of Hu Jintao.”

Next question, please.

I suspect that if anyone other than the revered holy man had tried that approach in some untamed media packs I have seen operate, he might have pulled back a bloody stump to which his hand had once been attached, his exalted status as Head Monk notwithstanding. Had the recipient of the caress been of the stridently militant female persuasion he might have found himself entangled in an international cause celebre, accused of some sort of felonious sexism.

What might happen, I wondered, if the ploy were to catch on as a way of deterring the unwanted question from news reporters and similar pests in other fields of endeavor.

How might the chattering classes react, for instance, were President Bush to condescendingly pat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the cheek on prime-time television while suggesting that she is not representative of the American public in her daily demand to bring the troops home from Iraq? Think such a maneuver might incite the excitable Ms. Speaker to become more strident than usual when sermonizing about the president’s alleged abundance of flaws and inadequacies?

The Dalai Lama pat-and-release approach might work effectively for some presidential aspirants, I suppose, but not so hot for others. It would be hard to imagine, say, the picture-perfect Republican Mitt Romney, every well-coiffed hair in place and every public utterance carefully scripted, pulling it off. Or even wanting to.

Hillary Clinton might do well to have a go at the cheek-pat as diversionary tactic in her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. It should be every bit as effective as what has come to be known as the “Clinton Cackle,” a seemingly calculated laugh that the woman has begun to unleash from out of left field to stall for time in her give-and-take with reporters, or as a way to undercut a serious question or to avoid answering it altogether.

The Dalai Lama’s technique in handling the news media might lead to variations on the theme and improvement in the genre. Picture Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani playfully wrapping a nosy reporter in a tight headlock while administering a serious noogie to the poor fellow in lieu of answering a tricky question about abortion. Or imagine some laid-back office seeker giving a hot foot to an unsuspecting reporter snoozing in the front row of the daily show-and-tell briefing. That sort of thing.

As an attention-getter, either would trump the favored approach of the late Rep. Louis Jalbert, D-Lewiston, who, by the time I got to know him in the mid-1960s, had been dean of the Maine House of Representatives since shortly after Maine had had the good sense to sever diplomatic relations with Massachusetts.

The colorfully outspoken Jalbert loved to refer to himself as “Mr. Democrat,” or “Mr. D” for short. He had a habit of punching his index finger into the chest of any reporter who had angered him, backing the unfortunate ink-stained wretch up against the nearest wall to subject him to a loud lecture – usually before an appreciative audience – on the reporter’s shameful ignorance of Mr. D’s importance in the legislative process.

The trick for the reporter was to always make sure he was not being herded into a corner from which there could be no escape. With proper planning and one good pivot, left or right, he could be free of the Jalbert Treatment for another day.

To be fair about it, the man was more knowledgeable about politics than most anyone you would care to name, a Damon Runyonesque character who, for most reporters, was a joy to cover. Before time marched relentlessly onward, leaving the Legislature a mere blip in our respective rearview mirrors, we had become friends.

Had the Dalai Lama cheek-pat maneuver been in vogue back in those finger-jabbing days, however, I’m not so sure the friendship would have blossomed.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may contact him via e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.