President Bush offered White House reporters plush armchair seating in the West Wing briefing room, with suede or velvet upholstery, and double the space.

Then he took it all back.

''Forget it,'' the president said Wednesday, as he and reporters bid goodbye to the briefing room and work spaces that the White House press corps has occupied in some form since the Nixon administration. ''You get to work like the rest of us,'' Bush said.

What reporters hope the president and his aides don't take back are their promises that the media's eviction from West Wing quarters will not be permanent.