Mock the Press

As the end of this video shows, he then did exactly as advertised.

"Brilliant question," he said, cocking his head, then adding: "Thank you all. See you soon."

Thus did the president inaugurate a room dedicated to interaction with the press with an act of stonewalling.

Here's a photo from over Bush's shoulder, showing a full house. Here is a Reuters photo showing Bush's notes, left at the podium. (Here is a readable version.)

Jennifer Loven writes for the Associated Press that "the look of the place generally was praised. The media's work quarters are sleek and uniform -- no-frills, industrial-style desks and booths of tan, silver and black. There even are marble walls, granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.

But the briefing room backdrop, intended to be a high-tech wonder appropriate for a modern, 24-hour TV world, was widely panned. Its layered frosted-glass panels and two 45-inch flat-screen monitors, flanked by fake white columns and featuring rotating decals depending on the speaker, were derided for lending a gaudy, game-show aura to the most visible face of the White House.

In her Houston Chronicle blog, Julie Mason describes the new podium in two words: Caesar's Palace. And by golly, she has a point. Here's Caesar's; here's the White House.

In the New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes that Bush willingness to appear at all was an indulgence to the press -- and an act of desperation.

"Back when he was riding high in the polls, when his every utterance made headlines and the press planes trailing him around the country were still full, President Bush had little need to indulge reporters with ceremonial pleasantries.

"But that is what Mr. Bush intends to do Wednesday, when he cuts the ribbon for the renovated White House briefing room. It is the latest sign of how times have changed for a president who now must work to hold the attention of a press corps that often seems to have lost interest in him. . . .

"Mr. Bush is confronting the fact that he can no longer drive the news agenda as he once could.

"'The president is struggling to assert himself as president and as a powerful figure,' said John M. Elliot, a professor at Kenyon College in Ohio who studies the media in American politics. 'It's harder for him to make news. The American public isn't really listening to him.' . . .