A PRESS CONFERENCE

There was a Presidential press conference this AM.

Mr. Bush is now in top form. He does not face reelection pressures. He is not endorsing any candidate at this time. He is enjoying a number of legislative successes, and military ones, and diplomatic ones, and various other ones.

The approval ratings, fickle nonsense as they are, show those of the Congress to be below his.

The press corps was polite. It was genial. The President was witty. He was funny. He was statesmanlike.

He sidestepped the traps. He aggressively promoted his agendas.

I think I was on the third cup of coffee when the thought occurred: Mr. Bush was not doing anything like an imitation, but I caught the sense of a previous President in his answers to the leading questions of the press.

Simply stated, the President refused to answer that which he did not want to answer, and the reporters didn’t press him. He refused to endorse; he refused to comment on investigations until they were completed; and he corrected press interpretations, allegations.

When asked what it was that would make a good candidate, or some question to that effect, he answered that it was that the individual would remain true to his or her principles and would not be as a reed in the wind, with an ear to the damned polls.

He was saying that with him, at least, the buck would stop. He would call the shots as he saw them. And that that was the only way it should be done.

It was sooooooooo Harry S. Trumanlike. Don't laugh.

We have a good man in the White House.