KEY POINTS:
At Thursday's White House press briefing, between a question about the global economy and a question on the attempted assassination of United States Vice-President Dick Cheney in Afghanistan, spokesman Tony Snow was asked a question about Helen Clark's visit to the White House, announced a few minutes earlier.
A transcript of the press conference shows it is from New Zealand-friendly correspondent Connie Lawn.
" ... it has been ages since the New Zealand Prime Minister has been invited here. Does this mean the US can resume an allied relationship with New Zealand, despite the nuclear and environmental policies? And will President Bush hold a lunch or dinner or a press conference with her?"
Snow was suitably bemused. "At this juncture I dare say we haven't finished scheduling things. So when it comes to dinner or luncheon, bowling on the lawn, we don't have that stuff."
There are two things that can be immediately ruled out: bowling on the lawn and an allied relationship.
Relations with the superpower have improved markedly in President Bush's second term, but not that much.
New Zealand remains a close friend, not the ally it was before anti-nuclear laws curtailed the ally status under Anzus.
But the relationship has moved on so far that even reminders of the distinctions in status have become increasingly irrelevant.
So what has changed? In short, the Pacific.
The instability of the region has worsened, China is more interested, and the US has become more interested in New Zealand's role in it.
The change in US thinking has occurred under the stewardship of Christopher Hill, who has been Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Such is the elevation of the Pacific's importance that a Pacific summit with Bush or Rice to coincide with Apec in Sydney was mooted on the fringes of Apec in Hanoi last year. The deterioration of the region since then make that seem unlikely now.
Early into the job in 2005, Hill attended the Pacific Islands Forum summit in Papua New Guinea and last year in Fiji where he saw first-hand the depth of problems in the Pacific.
He also saw first-hand New Zealand's relatively close and comfortable relationship within the Pacific with Clark and Foreign Minister Winston Peters present.
That is not to understate the importance or influence of Australia as the biggest and wealthiest power in the region. But both countries bring increasingly different qualities to their relationships in the Pacific.
Australia's silver-spooned Foreign Minister Alexander Downer illustrated in Wellington on Monday why Australia exudes all the charm of steel wool.
Talking about the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands he said it would collapse without Australia which had bankrolled it $250 million a year, and he believed the pressure of ordinary people in the Solomons would hold sway over the reprobates in Parliament who had their own agendas. Okay, he didn't say reprobates, but he might as well have.
New Zealand is not immune to his abrasiveness either, being on the receiving end of some thinly coded criticism for its inertia over Iran's nuclear gamesmanship.
At the same event, Downer heaped praise on Australia for its "mateship" with the US and for meeting the true test of friendship, sticking with it when things go bad in Iraq.
Iraq may be the truest test for the US, but it is not its only test.
There are other commitments against which the US has measured New Zealand's mateship, one being its willingness to take part in Bush-initiated Proliferation Security Initiative whereby like-minded countries intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction or materials for them.
The US has lifted its ban on military exercises with New Zealand three times in the past 18 months to take part in a PSI exercise.
But Iraq will be well and truly off the agenda when Clark meets Bush - but not Afghanistan where, it seems likely, New Zealand will redeploy its SAS. And to ensure it does not become a one-dimensional security-focused trip, Clark has expanded it to ensure there is a business and IT focus in visits to Chicago and Seattle.
Australia's deepening economic friendship with the US is reason alone for New Zealand to step up its ties with the US beyond maintenance mode.
Australia has already negotiated a free trade agreement with the US. And New Zealand hasn't given up on one.
Despite public utterances last year that New Zealand was no longer pursuing "head to head" a free trade agreement , privately the Government thinks there could be a chance.
It has pretty much given up on getting one under Bush's existing fast-track authority from Congress to negotiate free trade deals and which expires in June. But there is now hope that the mandate will be renewed - by a Democrat-controlled Congress.
US Trade Representative Susan Schwab is making a strong bid for Bush to get the renewal - both to keep the Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks alive and for potential bilateral deals.
The Democrats appear to be thinking seriously about renewing it.
That could well be the primary driver behind New Zealand's timing to seek an invitation for Clark - to be well up the queue should Bush be given renewed trade muscle in his less than two years in office.
After seven years of heading a friendly country, there would be something amiss if she couldn't wangle a second invitation five years later.
Clark first visited the White House as Prime Minister in March 2002.
At that time, she had been in power for two years, Afghanistan was the centre of attention and New Zealand's SAS troops were fighting alongside 2000 other coalition forces rooting out Taleban and al Qaeda suspects in the Hindu Kush.
Iraq stood un-invaded. Fiji was getting over its 2002 coup, the Solomons had not yet to slide into the chaos that precipitated Ramsi, and there was a good deal of optimism about the Doha round that had just been launched.
There is much to talk about - perhaps not over bowls, but over lunch and a press conference.
