by Mark Silva

President Bush views the prostitution-scandal of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer as "a sad situation,'' a spokeswoman said this morning, but he doesn't plan to have anything to say about it.

"The president's only reaction was that he thought that it was a sad situation,'' said Dana Perino, White House press secretary, "but that he would have no further comment.''

The White House stands much readier to address another problem: The price of crude oil reaching $110 per barrel. "The price of crude oil and therefore the price of gasoline is very high,” Perino said en route to the president's address before an assembly of religious broadcasters in Nashville this morning. "We are very concerned about it.”

It would be wrong, however, she said, to think that the president can do something about oil prices that “can have an immediate impact.”

In his speech today, Bush is confronting another issue: The war in Iraq nearing its fifth anniversary. His speech at the Grand Ole Opry resort will be one of the first of several to remind the American public "who we are dealing with” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perino said the speech is intended “to remind the American people why we are there and give them a status report.”

At the airport in Nashville, Bush was greeted by Dr. Karla Christian, a pediatric heart surgeon at Vanderbilt University, who volunteered for an operation on a two-year-old Iraqi girl. The child, Amina al a Thabit, was brought to the U.S. for what Perino said was life-saving surgery after U.S, Marines/medical personnel encountered her in Haditha.

The president, holding the doctor’s hand, walked her over to the pool of reporters who traveled with him to Nasvhille and said she “really symbolizes the best of America.”

With thanks to Jim Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times for the morning pool report.