They told him how much they were looking forward to working with him over the “next eight years of your presidency.” Then Bush gave a speech in an airplane hangar that was reminiscent of so many feel-good campaign events. He kissed a gray-haired woman and the audience squealed with delight. He worked a rope line of camera-snapping men in uniform. A pink sign in the crowd read HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY MR. PRESIDENT.

Nobody was loving Valentine’s Day Bush-style more than the press corps, however, when Air Force One landed back at Andrews Air Force Base by 1:30 p.m. “Can it really be only 1:30?” one photographer, a veteran of the Clinton years said staring at her watch. “We’re back at Andrews and the sun’s still up!” a camera man exclaimed. “Yeah, and it’s the same day!” chimed another.

For reporters still weary from Clinton’s marathon-travel days, the Bush era is an almost unbelievable breeze. “No one’s ever going to be able to put in for overtime with a straight face ever again,” quipped Larry Downing, veteran photojournalist.

When Bush stopped by to visit an emergency-operations center at National Guard Headquarters, the lieutenant colonel in charge shouted out: “The president is in the limo.” Back in Clinton’s day that could mean anything from a five-minute to a 50-minute wait for him to get there, depending on his mood and willingness to chat. But under Bush, that meant business. The guardsmen and women at their computer-simulation stations began running their demonstration programs immediately.

“He thinks that being on time shows respect for the office,” explains one of Bush’s top advisers, Karen Hughes. For all his now famous discipline and timeliness, Bush looks remarkably relaxed as president. Wednesday morning on his plane, he was jovial and laughing as he leaned on a partition, his suit open enough to show his cowboy belt, and chatted it up with Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, who was along for the ride. Of course, Bush has been on Air Force One plenty of times even before he was president. But there is something about the ease with which he threw on a presidential bomber jacket this week and hopped on and off Marine One, his helicopter, that already says “I’m president.”

“He really does look comfortable doesn’t he,” Hughes marveled. Clinton took a while to grow into the presidency. Months after taking office, reporters began writing about how Clinton had just started to look presidential, how he had gotten that “far away look” that you see in the knowing eyes of presidents. “I remember that George Stephanopoulos used to talk about how Clinton grew more distant from his staff,” Hughes says. But, she says of Bush, “he’s still the same.”

That means he’s still eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and still taking naps. And he’s still cheap. One wise-cracking aide suggested in jest that maybe the short trips on Air Force One were all part of the penny-pinching administration’s new strategy. After all, it costs $58,000 an hour to fly the 747 that is often used to ferry Bush around.

On the trip home Wednesday afternoon, Bush did not come back and give the press any love. He saved that for his wife, who is putting the final touches on their new ranch house in Crawford, Texas, where Bush will sleep for the first time on Friday night. He sent her some roses, and she sent him a coconut cream pie for Valentine’s. The early arrival home left a few reporters scurrying off to do a bit of last-minute shopping of their own. “My boss will never expect me back this early,” one explained.

FOR YOUR EARS ONLY

George W. Bush laid down several new rules for White House staff: never wear jeans and always wear a tie in the Oval Office, be courteous and don’t accept a meal that costs more than $20 from anyone intent on lobbying you. While that last rule gets flouted, there is one rule that everyone seems loathe to break: never repeat conversations the president has had with you in private.

Unfortunately, foreign leaders didn’t get the memo. The new president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, released a transcript of her conversation with Bush recently. The tail end of the exchange between the two new heads of state went as follows:

Bush: “I hope I didn’t call you too early.”

Arroyo: “No, no, It’s about a little past 8 a.m. here.”

Bush: “Oh, it’s about past 7 in the evening here, so we’re actually in different time lines.”

Arroyo: “That’s right, halfway around the world.”

Bush was miffed. It was supposed to be a private conversation. But beyond that, he was caught once again in the act of word displacement (remember preserve instead of persevere during the campaign?) when he substituted “time line” for “time zone.” Now the administration has sent the word to foreign leaders that mums the word no matter what language they speak.

“This president believes that it’s important for him to be able to have confidential conversations with heads of state and heads of government,” says a senior White House official. “His view is very strongly that the process needs to be confidential. We have gone out of our way to send the message loud and clear, when people on the other side of those conversations have leaked them, that’s not the way this president thinks it should work.”

Now, in his phone calls to world leaders–more than two dozen so far–Bush (via his staff mostly) emphasizes that the calls are for their ears only. These short, get-to-know-you calls, explains the official, are meant to “develop a personal relationship with leaders in times that are not of crisis so he can build a personal relationship and personal capital that is available in times of crisis.”

Where’d he get that idea? His dad. That’s exactly what George H.W. Bush did when he took office and it’s one reason he was able to build a strong and quick coalition during the Gulf War.