How Bush Made the Call

"So this was driven by that clock. We were backing up decision-making based on that. We had a window in which the President -- we decided more than two weeks ago, three weeks ago -- in which the President would make a decision. That window was roughly this weekend, this past weekend -- Saturday, Sunday -- through Wednesday of this week. He made the decision today. It falls right in that window that we had set out weeks before."

On Not Picking a Woman

"Q Dan, can you tell us the President's thinking on ignoring his wife's advice? (Laughter.)

"Q He's in trouble, right? (Laughter.)

"MR. BARTLETT: Absolutely not. Mrs. Bush is spending time with the nominee right now. And she shares the President's view that he is extremely qualified.

"Q Is there a sofa bed in the Oval Office? (Laughter.)"

A Deliberate Feint?

During a brief press availability on Monday, Bush wouldn't say much about where he was in the nomination process, but he did say this: "I will sit down with some and talk to them face-to-face, those who I have not known already."

That turned out not to be true.

"Q Dan, Monday the President said, I will be interviewing people. Well, he looked like he was done by Monday. Can you explain that?

"MR. BARTLETT: Well, I'll have to go back and look at that. Like I said, there's follow-up conversations with people, whether it was done by staff, as well. He might have been talking in the collective --

"Q Did he plan to interview more people on Monday? Or was he just throwing us off the scent? I mean, he definitely spoke in the future tense -- I will be interviewing people; some of them I don't -- the ones I don't know.

"MR. BARTLETT: Well, he definitely interviewed people that he hadn't known. I think -- like I said, these people were having -- there was follow-up conversations being had with these people. And so I think that's what his intention of his comments were."

Cheney's Role?

What about the vice president's role?