CORRESPONDENT

As I write this, I'm a bit more than half-way through my final day in Crawford, Texas, after eight years of coming here scores of times to cover President Bush when he spent time on his "Prairie Chapel" ranch. But who's counting?

I picked up some tiny intestinal stowaways in Peru 10 days ago, and brought them aboard Air Force One, where my greenish tint earned me sympathy from colleagues and kindly help from the stewards. I'll spare you the details. Well, most of them.

National and international attention is locked on US president-elect Barack Obama, who takes office in 69 days. But hey, what's President Bush up to in the waning days of his administration? Good question.

The Lovely and Talented Julie Mason, White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner, recently wrote this nifty thumbnail biography of White House press secretary Dana Perino.

Here, for your enjoyment: http://tinyurl.com/6y9ops

For three decades, departing White House press secretaries have given their successors a ceremonial flak jacket, as well as a manual to tell them how to manage their relations with reporters. This time, though, US President George W. Bush's communications team is trying to live by the old writer's adage "show, don't tell" as it plans for the arrival of spokespeople for John McCain or Barack Obama.

Today, for the first time ever, the White House complained about my status.

No, they didn't finally catch on to the fact that I am (I think) the only Frenchman to set foot on Vice President Cheney's Air Force Two airplane. Or try to deflate my ego, or banish me from a room in which I was not supposed to be.

For the last time, reporters, here are things the White House does not have: A magic wand (to lower oil prices), a silver bullet (to fix the US financial system) or super-powers (to catch Osama bin Laden).

On the eve of the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked why the al-Qaeda chief was still at large, and whether this showed the limitations of US intelligence and military clout. Yes, she said, but it's also that bin Laden is hiding in a hard-to-reach spot (thought to be along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border), and then...well, I'll let her tell it:

Back in 2003, French-bashing souvenirs were all the rage at trinket stores in President Bush's adoptive home town of Crawford, Texas. My very favorite - I bought a bunch of these - was a palm-sized refrigerator magnet showing then-French President Jacques Chirac kissing US First Lady Laura Bush's hand. The caption read: "Laura Bush: America's Secret Weapon."

But observers of US politics have long seen Laura Bush as an asset to the White House, and that's maybe never been more evident than over the past few days.

This morning, as I was trapped on my Metro station's platform, listening to announcements about horrible delays, worrying about getting to the White House on time, the White House's usually innocuous "Morning Update" email sent my blackberry pager/cell phone all a-flutter.

It's normally a re-hash of the previous day's news, plus a look ahead at the current day's events, and sometimes an updated schedule. The schedule that went out Wedesday night put President Bush at CIA headquarters for a series of meetings and briefings. So I scrolled down to see what was cooking in the White House kitchen and I found this:

On Thursday, at 6:00 am, I will get on a plane at Washington's Reagan National bound for Waco, Texas, via Dallas, for what will in all likelihood be my final August sojourn in President Bush's adoptive home state.

I've been doing this for eight years, and I've logged untold days, weeks, and months in Waco. I'm surprised to find that I'm ambivalent in the face of my final August foray to the Lone Star state (regular readers will recall that I insist that Waco Saved My Marriage).