President George W. Bush, trying to stay relevant as the media spotlight shifts to the 2008 presidential campaign, is lately working harder to court the press corps.
    
Bush is not known for his fondness for reporters but on Thursday he took the unusual step of inviting a small group of them to the Oval Office for an informal, 15-minute chat about a speech he planned later in the day.
    
Sitting behind his desk as reporters gathered around, Bush launched into a defense of Michael Mukasey, his embattled nominee for attorney general. His prospects in the Democratic-led Senate have been thrown into doubt by criticisms of his failure to say whether he thinks the interrogation technique known as waterboarding is illegal.
    
The session was strictly “pen and pad,” with no cameras allowed, and a relaxed-looking Bush took a handful of questions after giving brief comments about his speech.
    
Bush has tended to give fewer formal press conferences than many of his recent predecessors, including former President Bill Clinton and his father, President George H.W. Bush.
 
And since the early days of his administration, many reporters have publicly grumbled over a lack of access. The Bush White House has long had a reputation for being tight-lipped with the media and leaks are rare even six-and-a-half years into his administration.
 
But the media entourage surrounding Bush has grown smaller in the past few months as many reporters have left Washington to join the presidential candidates on the campaign trail in the pivotal early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
 
White House press secretary Dana Perino, who took over as Bush’s top spokesperson following the departure of Tony Snow last month, has been experimenting with ways to give reporters more access.
    
The impromptu Oval Office gaggle was inspired by a photograph that Bush saw of President Dwight Eisenhower meeting with reporters.
    
“The president had a seen a photograph of President Eisenhower having a press conference in the Oval Office and this was mentioned in casual conversation a few weeks ago,” Perino told Reuters. “And so leading up to this speech today I thought this might be a good time to try a new technique to bring in our pool reporters for a pen and pad that we haven’t done before.”
    
“President Bush enjoys his time talking with the media, believe it or not,” she later told a news briefing.
 
“There are a variety of ways we communicate at the White House, and I hope that this is a tool that we can employ in the future,” Perino said. 

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Bush at an August bill signing in the Oval Office.)