BROOKE GLADSTONE: Also this week, a rate prime time presidential press conference, one that probably revealed more about the press than the Commander-in-Chief. According to author and New Yorker magazine media watcher, Ken Auletta, the main thing it said about the president was that he realized it was finally time to confront the enemy within.

KEN AULETTA: Bush has held fewer press conferences than any modern president, in the post World War II period. The number is roughly 3 times fewer than his own father had, and it's a reflection of his attitude towards the press. And the president at his barbecue with the press this August and a reporter said to him: Mr. President, is it really true you don't read the press or watch us on television? And he said no. And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You're making a powerful assumption, young man. You're assuming that you represent the public. I don't accept that. That's his attitude. And when you ask the Bush people to explain that attitude, what they say is: We don't accept that you have a check and balance function. We think that you are in the game of "Gotcha." Oh, you're interested in headlines, and you're interested in conflict. You're not interested in having a serious discussion and, and exploring things, so why should we have to talk to you?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So this week, he put himself in the "Gotcha" cross hairs because he deemed he had to?

KEN AULETTA:Precisely. Bush felt that he's under constant attack. His Republican base is saying: Mr. President, you have to go out there and explain what it is we're doing in Iraq. And so what did Bush do? He opened with a statement, using the excuse of a press conference, to give a 17 or 18 minute address about why he's going to stand fast in Iraq. And then he answered the questions.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:But did he, indeed, answer the questions? It seemed to be a masterful exercise in evasion. He received the questions. He nodded, and then he proceeded to answer questions of his own device.

REPORTER: Mr. President, why are you and the Vice President insisting on appearing together before the 9/11 Commission, and Mr. President, who will we be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th?

GEORGE W. BUSH: You'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Barhimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over. And secondly, because the 9 Commis-- the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions. That's why we're meeting, and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions.

REPORTER: Sir, I was asking why you're appearing together, rather than separately which was their request.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Because it's a good chance for both of us to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is--looking forward to asking us, and I'm looking forward to answering them.

KEN AULETTA: Whatever question you asked, [LAUGHS] he was going to give his answer to it. Now, Bush tends to be a little more egregious than most in this regard -- that he has no shame about repeating the same answer over and over again. And one of the things that I found fascinating about this particular press conference - it revealed a dynamic that takes place behind the scenes. The dynamic for Bush, and it's true of other presidents, but it's more acute with Bush, is that they sit and they program what are the questions we might be asked, and what are the points we want to be sure we make --over and over and over again. But as Bush rehearses for the questions, the press goes through its own mirror image of that. They rehearse what is the question we're going to ask that will shake the president off his talking points, that will force him into a moment where he gives us a candid response, or he shows vulnerability that gives us a gotcha moment or a wow moment.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And interestingly, in this press conference, it seemed that most of the reporters came up with the very same question.

REPORTER: ...urgency. Two and a half years later, do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?

REPORTER: ...you never admit a mistake. Is that a fair criticism? And do you believe that there were any errors of judgment...

REPORTER: ...to 9/11. Do you believe the American people deserve a similar apology from you and...

REPORTER: ...after 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned?

REPORTER:...you feel that you have failed in any way? You don't have many of these press conferences where you eng--engage in this kind of exchange. Have you failed in any way...?

KEN AULETTA: It was a kind of an Oprah-esque question, and it was really, you know, are you sorry, and what that suggested to me is that the reporters had rehearsed their questions they were going to ask, but then when one reporter asked a question, instead of the next reporter being shaken and, and getting off their talking point question, they repeated the question.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But they never did get an answer.

KEN AULETTA:No, they never did, and - but that's not why they repeated the question. They repeated the question, because if the president was pre-programmed, so too, many reporters are pre-programmed.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And only one or two reporters grabbed the opportunity for a follow-up, but is it against the rules?

KEN AULETTA:In effect it is. The decorum in the White House press corps, imposed by the White House press office, is you get one question, and one of the pressure points on the press is they are very aware that if they sound disrespectful to the president in a setting like that, the public goes crazy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think it was a legitimate question - the do you have regrets question?

KEN AULETTA: Absolutely. Absolutely.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Or do you think it was a gotcha question, or do you think it was both?

KEN AULETTA:I think it was both. I, I mean I think that it is a legitimate question to ask whether, you know, in light of the difficulty we are in, in, in Iraq now -- and we haven't found weapons of mass destruction, which was the pretext for going to war -- so it, it's fair to ask the president that question. However, he clearly was not going to answer, because the press would pay gotcha on that.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And how did this play as a media event? Who won or who lost?

KEN AULETTA:I guess I would have to say the press lost. The president holds the cards. First of all, he dominates almost half the press conference with a statement. And then he chooses not to answer the questions. Now if, if someone had asked him a question that threw him off stride and caused a headline that - where he looked foolish, that would be one thing. But no one asked him that question. He did not behave foolishly. He's not, obviously, the most fluent, articulate speaker, but Bush did better than, say, he did at his last press conference, or better than he did on Meet the Press with Tim Russert's questions a month or so ago.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:I was watching the press conference with another journalist, and I turned to him and said, in the middle of one of Bush's answers, can you remember what the question was, and he couldn't.

KEN AULETTA: [LAUGHS] Well, but that--

BROOKE GLADSTONE: I think if you forget the questions, then it means the president won that round.

KEN AULETTA: I think that's absolutely right.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ken, thank you very much.

KEN AULETTA: My pleasure.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: New Yorker magazine writer Ken Auletta's latest book is called Backstory: Inside the Business of News.

BOB GARFIELD: Coming up, in Rwanda the media are told to avoid incendiary words like Tutsi and Hutu, and the inscrutable Marshall McLuhan.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media, from NPR.