Bush Gossip

Bush daughter's night out

Babs lets her hair down drinking
and dancing at Chelsea Fashion Week shindig

By TRACY CONNOR
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Girls just wanna have fun - even the President's daughter.

Barbara Bush put on quite a show when she stepped out Wednesday night with her "very good friend" Fabian Basabe, a preppy party-hopper dubbed one of the city's most eligible bachelors.

They hit the dance floor at a swank soiree for fashion designer Jennifer Nicholson (daughter of Jack) at the Chelsea hot spots Sette and Viscaya.

First Daughter Barbara wore a flouncy, cleavage-baring slip dress over jeans and high heels, while Basabe, son of an Ecuadoran businessman, had on a sweater and polo shirt.

The 21-year-old Yale senior - who was busted with her twin, Jenna, for underage drinking in Texas in 2001 - sipped margaritas at a table littered with Veuve Cliquot champagne bottles.

Then she and her date showed off dance moves they could have picked up from the sword-wielding belly dancer gyrating on the bar. It was all captured exclusively by Daily News photographer Richard Corkery.

With drag queen Lady Bunny at the turntables, Bush straddled Basabe's leg, gazed into his eyes and let him dip her to the floor. She hung off him like a dangling chad.

And you thought Jenna Bush was the wild one.

The club was mobbed with boldfaced names like Grace Hightower (Mrs. Robert DeNiro) and Ivanka Trump (the original apprentice).

But all eyes were on Bush as she made the rounds, with Secret Service agents tailing her at a discreet distance.

"She hopped around," said one guest. "She's very friendly, uninhibited. She wasn't exactly Paris Hilton, but she's fun. She's not afraid to have a drink."

Christiaan McPherson said he took Bush for a spin - and gave her high marks.

"We got into it, and she was a lot of fun," he said. "She knows how to shake her shoulders."

The genie-themed shindig was hosted by first cousin Lauren Bush, socialites Amanda Hearst, Tinsley Mortimer and Elisabeth Kieselstein-Cord and PR man R. Couri Hay.

Basabe didn't want to talk about his relationship with Bush, and the White House never comments on the private lives of the presidential progeny.

But from the pelvis-pounding dance they did, it sure looked as if Basabe had joined Bush's coalition of the willing.

"He's very attractive, and they were dancing, shall we say, closely," a partygoer told The News. "Some might say dirty dancing."

Bush and Basabe, 25, an aspiring actor featured in E! Entertainment Network's "Young, Rich and Famous," have been quietly close for some time.

"You could say he's her very good friend," one insider said.

Gotham magazine put him on a list of eligible bachelors, and the Learning Channel hired him for its "Faking It" series.

The "it" boy has said he was "promised" to lingerie-empire heiress Martina Borgomanero, but was "semi-single" and dating other people