SOTU: Postgame

The speech itself wasn't bad at all. In fact, it was the best SOTU I've seen delivered by the president during his two terms in office, and among his best piece of George, Junior oratory overall.

Although I did listen mostly on the radio while running errands last night. So the effect might have been different if I was actually watching the delivery, with Cheney and Pelosi hovering above like grim old gargoyles, and the floor full of craven polticos smirking and stroking their chins. Bush was smooth - no meatcleaver syntax or garbled diction. And whoever wrote it had a discerning ability to graft together the president's plain Crawford style (to put it generously) with a few graceful turns of phrase. That can't be easy. One example:

Every one of us wishes that this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned, and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. So let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory.

Not to indulge the Iraq sidebar, but all of this might have inspired much more confidence and resolve among the American people if these words (and a "new strategy") were put forward in, say, January 2005. Now he's making the best case that can be made, given a progressively hopeless reality. And he chose a let's-work-together approach to the issue, when one admittedly more cynical option would have been to say to Democrats: "Don't stand there criticizing every solution and advocating withdrawl without owning the potential consequences. If you think both Iraqi and American security will be improved by our departure, say so decisively on the record - otherwise you simply want things to go from bad to worse as a way to consolidate your own political power and discredit me, and I'm not the issue."

But he didn't say that. As for domestic policy:

Reducing gasoline consumption by 20% in 10 years? An audacious idea, but it will be forgotten or downplayed as quickly as possible by environmentalists and Democrats because one, it was suggested by an evil Republican (not them), and two, it’s “not enough” (the solution is always progressively more radical than is politically workable). Therefore nothing will be done – at least until a similar idea is put forward by someone with Lefty credentials – at which point it will be considered bold and forward-looking.

Spending reform, preventing earmarks, etc.: The collective groan you heard was from millions of fiscal conservatives who think this should have been the mantra long before the ass-whipping last November.

And resolve the status of illegal immigrants without animosity and without amnesty? Fire the staffer who hacked together that little chestnut. Either you send them back - and you’re called a bigot by the One Note Sallys on the Left or you let them stay and you lose the love of the enraged, Sean Hannity Right. There’s no way on earth we will see any legislation actually passed and signed into law on this issue – or social security, for that matter.

And I didn't watch Webb, but he was a smart choice as the face of the Democrat party instead of the usual cadavers like John Kerry. Overall it was an entertaining (if impractical) night of political theater.

Tags: SOTU, Bush, Webb