The White House Plagiarist

"'When you have foreign governments and foreign business people and corporations giving huge amounts of money when the president is sitting there able to do favors for them, we ought to have it disclosed,' he said. 'I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he hadn't thought it through. ... I hope he'll become more sensitive to it.'"

Bush tried to explain his non-answers about the library by saying: "We just announced the deal, and I, frankly, have been focused elsewhere, like on gasoline prices and, you know, my trip to Africa."

Focused on Gas Prices? Hardly

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post about Bush's surprise upon hearing from a reporter yesterday that Americans are facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline: "You could've knocked Bush over with a feather. 'Oh, yeah?' he said. 'That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.'

"Uh-oh. The president, once known for his common-guy skills, sounded eerily like his old man, who in 1992 appeared surprised that supermarkets had bar-code scanners. On Wednesday, the $4-a-gallon forecasts had been on the front page of the New York Times, and on NBC's 'Today Show' and CBS's 'Early Show.' In the days before that, the prediction -- made by AAA, among others -- was in the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the New York Post, the Dallas Morning News, even the Kansas City Star. The White House press secretary took a question about $4 gas at her Wednesday press briefing. A poll last month found that nearly three-quarters of Americans expect $4 gas."

Maura Reynolds, Michelle Quinn and Ronald D. White write in the Los Angeles Times: "Bush's acknowledged unfamiliarity with the recent cost of gasoline produced some fumes at the pump.

"At a Shell service station in the Bay Area city of San Mateo, the price of a gallon of regular had already reached $4.29, well above the state average of $3.42, as measured by the AAA auto club.

"'Bush is out of touch with a lot of things we are facing today,' said 33-year-old Marisa Cajbon, who was filling her Toyota Sequoia SUV with the expensive fuel. 'I have to buy gas. I need to work. I have two kids. I think it's unfortunate. I think it's a crime.' . . .

"Roy Persinco, who filled up his Ford 250 pickup truck for $3.25 a gallon at a Santa Monica Shell station Thursday, said he spent $125 a week on gas.

"'I can't believe that an ex-oilman could be so unaware and ignorant of what is going on around him in the real world, but I'm sure his old buddies in the oil industry can tell him they're doing just fine,' Persinco said.

"Another motorist, Grant Reese of West Los Angeles, volunteered to help the president keep in touch during his remaining days in office, lest he be caught off guard by the Washington press corps again.

"'I'd be happy to send him all my credit card receipts for gasoline from now on,' Reese said, watching the pump top $40 as he filled the tank of his Nissan Altima at a Sam's Club station in Long Beach."

Housing Watch

In a big win for the mortgage industry, Senate Republicans yesterday lined up behind Bush and blocked consideration of a bill that would have sent billions of dollars to local communities to buy up subprime mortgages and would have allowed bankruptcy judges to slash interest rates for low-income homeowners.