Reporters covering President Bush's comings and goings often depend on pool reports, which are designated print reporters' accounts of what happened for all the other journalists who can't tag along.

Today's pool report on Bush's meeting with Chinese leadership gives a good sense of how little actually happened.

Bush has turned his attendance of Friday's Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing into an all-weekend sports blowout. He's staying here til Monday afternoon, longer than pretty much any other head of state.

It seems that during these dog days of the Bush presidency, there's a lot of free time.

It's not like the country's economy is tanking and major wars are going on or anything.

But to give the trip a little more oompf, the White House tagged on an afternoon of meetings today with top Chinese leadership. It came in between Bush's attendance of a morning swim meet and his nighttime attendance of the U.S.-China basketball game.

Wasn't there something else in the afternoon he could have attended? Judo? Beach volleyball? Well, I hope his sports blowout weekend wasn't interrupted by those high-level meetings.

Condoleezza Rice embarked on a similar tour in March when she dragged her entourage to Brazil and Chile for no perceptible reason other than to spend some time in Salvador, Brazil, the home of African-Brazilian culture. Even Brazilian diplomats who met with her later said they had no idea why she was in town.

Given the enormous expense of such trips, which involve dozens if not hundreds of staff and journalists, you'd think these guys would wait til they were ex-officials to go on vacation.

Today's pool report gives a sense of how little happened during Bush's visit:

The meeting with Premier Wen Jinbao took place in the Zi Guang Ge hall, another colorful palace like building whose name translates as the Purple Light Pavilion. Mr. Wen made similarly brief remarks about the Olympics, noting with a big smile the president's visit to the women's beach volleyball practice yesterday. A moment of grinning silence followed, and the president chuckled, but the import of the premier's reference remained unspoken as the two men moved on to discuss tonight's basketball game. The president noted that the foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, an old friend of the Bushes, would be attending. After a few moments of smiling, nodding and silence, the president made some remark, unheard by the pool, that signaled the end of the public part of their meeting.

-Jack Chang