How Raddatz Gets It Done

ABC’s Martha Raddatz is one of the more enterprising reporters on the White House beat, and quick thinking recently got her some unusual face time with the president. She was finishing up a 20-minute, on-camera interview with Bush at his ranch in Crawford this month when she asked the president if she could have a few minutes alone with him.

Sure, Bush replied, you can have more. So the two of them went into his office, Bush put up his feet on the desk, and they had a discussion about Iraq and foreign policy.

The private conversation lasted about 25 minutes, an extraordinary length of time for a president who always has aides present, even for off-the-record conversations with journalists.

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