Having a Loud Microphone, With Not Much to Say

At his year-end news conference, President Bush wouldn't talk in detail about Iraq, calling questions about it "hypothetical," although he said, "I believe that we are going to win." But he did urge Americans to shop more. (By Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)

Stolberg pressed to see if Bush doubts his past decisions. He does not. "The most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives," he offered, ending the thought with a grim shake of the head.

The journalists' attempts at psychotherapy were brought about by necessity. When they attempted to ask concrete questions about his plans for Iraq, he dismissed those queries as "hypothetical," or even "dangerous hypothetical." The format -- a year-end news conference after the most trying year of his presidency -- also invited introspection. But Bush was not about to let reporters put him on the couch.

"Mr. President, if we could return to the reflexive vein we were in a little while ago," proposed the Los Angeles Times's Jim Gerstenzang.

"The what?" Bush said.

"Reflexive," Gerstenzang repeated, before correcting himself. "Reflective."

It must have been Freudian: Whenever Bush was asked to be reflective, he became reflexive. As in: "Victory in Iraq is achievable." And: "Retreat would embolden radicals." And: "My administration will . . . fashion a new way forward that can succeed in Iraq."

The setting for the event, the rarely used Indian Treaty Room in the old Executive Office Building next to the White House, was inadvertently symbolic. Once a reception room for the Navy, it had stars on the ceiling for navigation, a compass in the center of the floor and other devices used by those who have lost their way.

Bush listlessly read his opening statement urging his countrymen to join him in causes large ("this war on terror is the calling of a new generation") and small ("I encourage you all to go shopping more"). Questioners found him strangely detached from events in the news. CNN's Elaine Quijano asked for his reaction to the report that Vice President Cheney is scheduled to testify in the CIA leak case. "I read it in the newspaper today," Bush answered. CBS's Mark Knoller asked if he had ordered an investigation into the leaking of an Iraq memo written by the national security adviser. "It's not fresh in my mind," Bush replied.

What was fresh in his mind was his new formulation on the war in Iraq, unveiled in the Post interview Tuesday: "We're not winning, we're not losing." The Associated Press's Terry Hunt tried to get Bush to square that not-too-hot, not-too-cold view with his prior view of "Absolutely, we're winning."

"I believe that we're going to win," the president explained. A moment later, he became ensnared in another apparent contradiction, this one about how his previous plan to shrink the size of the military "doesn't necessarily preclude increasing" the size of the military.

But it didn't take long for questioning to turn inward. Time magazine's Mike Allen asked him what, other than the Iraq war, would be Bush's "record of transformation."

It was straightforward enough, but the question put Bush back into his defensive crouch. "Look, everybody is trying to write the history of this administration even before it's over," he said. "But the true history of any administration is not going to be written until long after the person is gone."

The relevant president did a sharp about-face and departed his loud microphone.