Bush and Other VIPs Toe the Party Line

President George Bush rallied in Orange County on Sunday, but he partied in Los Angeles.

At a VIP reception at the Century Plaza Hotel, the President and Barbara Bush schmoozed with supernovas Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger before attending a gala dinner staged by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

Bright-eyed through it all was the director of development for the Costa Mesa office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Robin Weiden, who is planning a film premiere to benefit the organization on July 14 in Laguna Niguel.

More than 1,000 guests mingled in the reception area outside of the California ballroom (site of last fall’s gala launch of the Richard Nixon Birthplace & Library), where an army of Secret Servicemen watched party-goers. Several guards patrolled the area with hounds on a leash. The dogs were searching for would-be bombs, explained a gala committee member.

The name of the Reception Game: Watching super-celebs cruise down the escalator and disappear into the black-tie crush.

Party organizers are clever in Los Angeles. For this star-studded bash, they re-routed the escalators to force stars past the paparazzi.

After Stallone and Schwarzenegger--with a cool and composed Maria Shriver on his arm--swept into the madding crowd, they were met with another blinding blitz of flashbulbs. (More press. And party-goers wielding cameras.)

Other stars included John Forsythe and Milton Berle--who raved about his recent stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point--and Tony Danza, the night’s emcee.

One of the evening’s most hilarious moments came when Danza, the star of “Who’s the Boss?”, introduced every bigwig on the dais but the President of the United States. “Boy, is my face red,” he said, realizing his mistake as President Bush stood by smiling.

Also in the crowd, Gayle Wilson, representing her husband, Gov. Pete Wilson. In-the-knows know that Gayle and Pete love to sing together. Will they ever duet in Orange County? “Oh, I think that’s very likely,” she said. “The problem is Pete finding time to rehearse.”

The evening’s highlight was seeing Schwarzenegger receive the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s coveted National Leadership Award.

“Arnold has been incredibly involved with the center,” explained Weiden. “And not just at a monetary level. He has given his time and gotten others involved with our project to build a Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.”

Weiden’s benefit plans for the local branch of the organization include a premiere showing of “Echoes That Remain” on July 14 at the Rancho Niguel Mann Theatre in Laguna Niguel.

“Echoes” is a new documentary produced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center that looks at Jewish life before World War II. It was written by Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the center, and directed by film maker Arnold Schwartzman. The two collaborated on the movie “Genocide,” which won an Academy Award for best feature documentary in 1982.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, established in 1977 to promote racial tolerance and fight bigotry, has become the largest institution of its kind in North America dedicated to the study of the Holocaust.

“We are building the Museum of Tolerance so that people will look at the Holocaust as a human issue,” said Weiden. “Not a Jewish issue. We don’t want an event of that magnitude to ever happen again to a people of any race.”