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What are the acceptable terms of interviews with rarely interviewed government officials? Earlier this week we took note of some comments from Gareth Butler, editor of the BBC's "The Politics Show." He wrote that a recent interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair involved far fewer "shenanigans" from the PM's office ("you can't ask questions about this or that, you can only have x minutes, it has to be such-and-such a location") than most people assumed occurred with such rare sit-downs.

We asked Scott Pelley, who recently conducted a lengthy interview with President George W. Bush for "60 Minutes," about what the terms were – if any – for that exclusive. Pelley, who just returned from Iraq, was able to respond to us today. Here's what he told us in an e-mail:

The White House knows it cannot impose any limits on the scope of questioning. As a result, they never ask for such limits.

The limit they can, and do, impose is on time. When we did the interview at Camp David they were very strict. We had 10 minutes for the walk and talk and 20 minutes for the sit down.

In both venues, a White House staffer stood behind the president holding up time cards (5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, etc.) so that I could see them. The time restraint is a clever way to curtail follow up questions.

Every interview with a president is, foremost, a time management game. To compensate for this, a good interviewer narrows the scope of the interview and allows himself time for follow ups. I call this going “narrow and deep.” When people ask me, “Why didn’t you ask him …?” -- that’s my answer.

After every interview with the president, I spend the next several nights, sleepless, thinking about what I should have asked.

Press Bashers Anonymous: During a White House event last Friday honoring the late Time magazine reporter Hugh Sidey, former President George Bush unleashed what CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller described as a "formidable tirade" on the press. Taking an adversarial approach to the subjects journalists cover is one thing, he explained, but “It’s another when the journalists’ rhetoric goes beyond skepticism and goes over the line into overt, unrelenting hostility and personal animosity.” He added that he had begun an organization called "Press Bashers Anonymous" at one point, but "…then along came the South Carolina primary or something like that – and the hell with it – I got out of the organization and it folded.”

White House Hearts Bloggers: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow also had a few opinions about the press to share at a recent Q&A at George Washington University, The Washingtonian reports. To begin, no one can be an objective reporter. "God's objective. He knows what the truth is. Everything else is scratching at the surface." His other message: "the White House is continuing its efforts to bypass the mainstream media when possible." That means things like last week's conference call with "25 to 30 bloggers" before the State of the Union speech will likely be repeated.

CNBCitigroupGate?: A questionable relationship between CNBC anchor Maria Bartiromo (of BartinankeGate fame) has been eating up headlines for days among media-watchers (especially at TVNewser, where you can keep up with all the background and all the latest.) In today's New York Times, TV critic David Carr sounds off on the matter. And he writes what has been largely left out of most analyses: "Commerce runs on the favor bank," he says, and that symbiotic relationship "happens in journalism, too, no matter what anyone tells you."

Considering that, the question of why Bartiromo was making "command appearances at the request of Citigroup — and many other companies — that sit dead center in Ms. Bartiromo’s beat," still remains...

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