All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Peter Maer is a CBS News White House correspondent.

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The former oil man in the Oval Office refuses to predict the future course of gasoline prices. In a radio interview with CBS News in the White House Roosevelt Room, President Bush declined to offer his own price at the pump forecast. He recalled the hit he took earlier this year when, at a news conference, he told me that he had not heard about analysts' predictions of four buck a gallon gas. At the time he described the forecast as "interesting."

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CBS News White House correspondents Peter Maer (top left) and Mark Knoller (bottom left) interviewed President Bush in the Roosevelt Room at the White House.

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We had to wait nearly an hour for President Bush to enter the Roosevelt Room for our radio interview.

But actually, we’d been waiting more than seven years.

My colleague Peter Maer and I have been pitching the White House to grant us an interview with the president since the year he took office.

Most recently, we were told that Mr. Bush doesn’t like doing radio interviews. He doesn’t think his comments get a fair shake when we only use “snippets” of what he says in our radio reports and on the hourly radio newscasts.

Well, that’s the nature of the business. But through the magic of this podcast, you can hear everything thing he said, in the context in which he said it.

We were given 15 minutes, and tried to wring every nanosecond out of it.

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Click here to listen to the entire interview with President Bush.

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Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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Comments by President Bush today raised questions about his level of awareness of what Americans are paying for gasoline and where prices could be headed. During a photo opportunity with his economic advisors, Mr. Bush mentioned gasoline costs as he made the case for permanent tax cuts.

He told reporters, "If you're worried about $3 gasoline and you think your taxes may be going up in two years, then the uncertain price of gasoline creates more uncertainty as you plan for your future."

It was unclear whether Mr. Bush was referring to concerns about current or future prices. Press Secretary Dana Perino insisted the president is "fully aware of $3 and up gas."

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Kelly Wallace is a CBS News Correspondent based in New York.

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I don’t have to tell you about rising gas prices. Chances are you’ve been at a gas station recently and the conversation you had with yourself went something like this, “I can’t believe the prices keep going up and up and up.” Maybe you added a few other choice words – but we want this blog to have a “G” rating.

At a New York City gas station not far from the CBS Broadcast Center, the price of a gallon of regular unleaded is $3.35 – up 36 cents from just a month ago. We learned today the national average price for a gallon is a record $3.10 – a few cents higher than the record levels we saw after Hurricane Katrina.

What’s going on? “A lot of it is supply and demand,” said oil analyst Andrew Lebow, senior vice president of Man Financial.

Okay, now that Economics 101 class you once took will come in very handy. Despite the record prices, Americans are still guzzling up – going through about 9.35 million barrels a day compared to about 8 million ten years ago.

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Today's First Look comes to us from Kelly Wallace, who offers a preview of her report for the Evening News on the rising price of gas.

Just click the monitor for more.