All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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It was a first in my more than 22 years on the White House beat: coverage of a presidential latrine inspection.

It happened yesterday at Fort Bragg, N.C., where President Bush checked out military "facilities" at the home of the famed 82nd Airborne Division. The unusual visit was provoked after an Army paratrooper's dad shot a video that revealed shoddy conditions at a Fort Bragg barracks. The images posted on You Tube showed peeling paint, mold and sewage on a bathroom floor.

An Army statement said all repairs were completed within 72 hours of the posting of the April 24 video. But once on the Web, the disgusting images triggered a broad inspection of conditions at Army barracks. A Fort Bragg spokesman called the incident "embarrassing and shocking." He admitted it was "awful and never should have happened." The White House obviously couldn't agree more. The army made sure the latrine was squeaky clean when the president arrived for what obviously was NOT a surprise inspection as he visited the base to salute troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Pool reporter Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times described a restroom that was "as shiny as a new dime" when the commander-in-chief stepped on to the tile floor. Referring to the Army's plan to renovate and replace old barracks, Mr. Bush said, "these old buildings are coming down."

The administration clearly wants to avoid a repeat of the outrage that followed last year's revelations of dilapidated buildings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The Fort Bragg and Walter Reed stories are vivid contradictions of President Bush's frequent promises that the government will do everything possible for the nation's veterans and active duty forces.

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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Peter Maer is a CBS News White House correspondent covering President Bush's visit to Saudi Arabia.

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President Bush planned to use talks with the Saudi King Abdullah to urge OPEC to open the oil spigot even more. Earlier, the president told a Saudi business group that soaring oil prices are hurting the U.S. economy. The Saudis wasted no time responding. The oil minister said his country would raise production when the markets justify.

The president's overnight accomodations provided an opportunity for him to see how the Saudis spend some of the profits from oil exports to their number one customer, the United States. He is staying at King Abdullah's lavish desert retreat. The president saw some of the king's horses and some of the king's men at the oasis. The Saudis call it a horse farm but it's not a exactly a "farm" by American standards. It's a 2,000 acre country club-like setting about an hour's drive from Riyadh.

Protected by royal guards who patrol the walled compound, the farm houses the king's 150 prize Arabian stallions. The concrete stables provide the animals with climate-controlled equestrian luxury. The horses receive aqua-therapy and full-time veterinary care.

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Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News currently reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

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President Bush wants Arab allies to back U.S. efforts to isolate Iran. Winning their support is one of the top tours of his Middle East trip. He used a speech in the United Arab Emirates to describe Iran as "the world's leading sponsor of state terror." While the president's words were familiar, the volume was inherently louder here in Iran's back yard. Gulf nations share U.S. concerns about Iran's increasing influence in the energy-rich region but they fear any talk of war. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told reporters aboard Air Force One, "All agreed it's a difficult problem that needs to be addressed and at this point pursued in a diplomatic fashion."

Heading into the trip, officials indicated Iran would be a major issue at each stop. But after talks in Bahrain and The United Arab Emirates, Hadley insisted the issue did not "dominate" the president's talks with Gulf state leaders. The advisor did not seem eager to discuss the tone of the president's talks. Reporters tried to pin him down on the topic.

From the official White House transcript of the Hadley briefing:

REPORTER: Steve, what can you say about the texture of anything that leaders in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai have had to say to the President about Iran?

HADLEY: The focus of discussion has really been on what these leaders are doing for their countries, and I think the impression they give, each of them in different ways, is they're very visionary, they're very ambitious for their countries. They are very — they have both a vision and a will and a plan to get it done. And you know our president — he likes folks who are action-oriented and trying to get things done on the ground for their people. And that I think is the overwhelming story here, and that was what was the focus. And I think the President was very much impressed by what he saw in terms of the people, in terms of the leadership. And there — I think he felt there's an opportunity for us to strengthen ties with these leaders. So that's really what I think he found most interesting about his conversations.

REPORTER: While that is the overwhelming story, we also deal in sidebars. What was said about Iran?

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Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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Traveling almost directly from coverage of the Iowa caucuses in the Midwest to President Bush's challenging odyssey to the Mideast offers some unique perspectives.

The presidential candidates, who are focused on the next primary, would be wise to pay a bit of attention to what happens on the Bush trip to this volatile region. One of them will inherit what the president accomplishes or fails to accomplish on his mission to re-boot the peace process.

Wrapping up separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Mr. Bush optimistically said he believed the two sides would sign a peace treaty before he leaves office. One senior official hinted that the president overstated peace prospects because he was enthusiastic about his conversations with the key players. He sounded much more realistic as he read a prepared statement later in the day. He pointed to "painful political concessions" for each side. He bluntly used a word that's a hot button term for the Israelis, "occupation" to describe their current control of land that the Palestinians want for a future state. He sympathizes with Israel's security concerns. He warned that no agreement or Palestinian state would be based on terror.

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Peter Maer is a White House correspondent for CBS News.

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A published report has opened a window on the world as Donald Rumsfeld saw it during his tenure as Defense Secretary. At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld's memos were known as snowflakes. There was a blizzard of messages from his office. The Washington Post obtained some of the wartime defense secretary's 20,000 memos including one that drew sharp responses today from the White House and a leading Arab American group.

According to the Post, Rumsfeld contended that Muslims avoid "physical labor." He expressed the belief that oil wealth removed Muslims "from the reality of work, effort and investment that leads to wealth for the rest of the world." His memo said, "Too often Muslims are against physical labor, so they bring in Koreans and Pakistanis while their young people remain unemployed." Rumsfeld also warned, "An unemployed population is easy to recruit to radicalism."

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Rumsfeld's observations were "not in line with the president's views." She said she could understand why Arab Americans would be offended by the comments attributed to Rumsfeld.

The report brought a terse reaction from the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Spokesman Kareem Shora told CBS News Radio, "It seems very clear from the quotes that Mr. Rumsfeld had a very stereotypical, negative pessimistic view of Muslims. He's labeling 2.2 billion people in the world as lazy and against physical labor. It's going to be very harmful to our efforts in the Middle East and to winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world." The White House Press Secretary said the White House is already aware "that we have a lot of work to do to win hearts and minds across the Arab world and the Muslim world.

The Post said the Rumsfeld memos were marked "for official use only." They were not classified. The paper quoted a Rumsfeld spokesman who complained that the story was "based off of selective quotations and gross mischaracterizations from a handful of memos."