A Lurid Look Behind the Curtain

"Bush pitched a health care policy he knows stands no chance in a Democratic Congress, an education plan Democrats have already rejected and an energy policy that did little to wow his opponents.

"On Iraq, Bush implored a Congress that is poised to pass a resolution condemning his latest war plan to 'find our resolve, and turn events toward victory.'"

Peter Baker and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post that Bush's "approach contrasted with the last two presidents to address an opposition Congress after their parties lost midterm elections. Ronald Reagan conceded 'serious mistakes' in 1987, as did Bill Clinton in 1995. Clinton moved to the middle so conspicuously that the opposition leader who gave the official response noted that he 'sounded pretty Republican.' Although Bush acknowledged two weeks ago that 'mistakes have been made' in Iraq, he appeared unchastened last night and took no responsibility for his party's defeat or errors in office."

David E. Sanger and Jim Rutenberg write in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush got a polite reception, but one far more muted than in previous appearances. He waited until the end of his nearly 50-minute speech to deliver the assessment that typically opens these addresses, that 'the state of our union is strong.'"

Fact Check

Glenn Kessler does some fact-checking for The Washington Post: "In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of 'the enemy' that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

"Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran -- which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries -- is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 'The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat,' Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion. . . .

"[H]is description of the actions of 'the enemy' tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure."

Kessler questions Bush's insistence that "free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies" and that "we have a diplomatic strategy that is rallying the world to join in the fight against extremism."

He also finds room for a little domestic fact-checking as well. For instance: "Bush claimed credit for cutting the budget deficit ahead of schedule and proposed to eliminate it over the next five years. He did not mention that he inherited a huge budget surplus -- $236 billion in 2000 -- compared with a $296 billion deficit in the 2006 fiscal year, largely as a result of Bush's tax cuts and spending increases."

The Scene

Dana Milbank writes in The Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Cheney, sitting in the customary place behind President Bush as he addressed the nation from the House chamber last night, resembled nothing so much as a seesaw.

"'First we must balance the federal budget,' Bush said.

"Pelosi shot to her feet, followed slowly by Cheney.

"'We can do so without raising taxes,' Bush continued.

"Cheney leapt up. Pelosi started to stand, then reconsidered and sat down. . . .

"The president demanded a 'prompt up-or-down vote' for his judicial nominees.

"Cheney rose, grinning and applauding. Pelosi sat silently. . . .

"Pelosi's Democrats were, for the most part, well behaved last night, avoiding the noisy interruption they gave Bush when he spoke about Social Security in 2005."

In fact, Milbank notes that "both sides were unusually calm on a night where the yawns nearly equaled the cheers."

Kate Zernike writes in the New York Times: 'In preparation for the president's address, Ms. Pelosi of California had been coached by her staff to keep a neutral face. They warned that any raised eyebrow or pursed lip would be captured by the cameras trained on the president. . . .

"Democrats had decided it not in their interest to look churlish during the speech. Lawmakers were advised to take their cues on when to stand, sit down and applaud from Ms. Pelosi."

The New York Times has a graphic showing who was in the first lady's box, a chart of applause during the speech compared to past years, and fun with word counts.

KSTP-TV in Minneapolis finds one enthusiastic member of Congress who grabbed the president on his way out and wouldn't let go.

Bipartisanship?

Steven Thomma writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Bush wanted to convince Americans watching on television that he's heard them and that he wants again to work with Democrats....

"Yet the chasm between the parties is wide and deep, the politics between them are poisonous and Bush bears much of the blame.

"After reaching out to Democrats his first year, Bush governed after the 2001 terrorist attacks as the leader of a one-party state.

"In Congress, his party locked Democrats out of negotiations, then hammered votes through without chance of input.

"From the White House, Bush tacked 'signing statements' onto bills he signed and used the threat of terrorism in three successive elections to attack Democrats as weak or, worse, aiding the enemy. Last fall he warned that if the Democrats won control of Congress, 'terrorists win and America loses.'"

Yochi J. Dreazen blogs for the Wall Street Journal: "President Bush departed from the prepared text of his State of the Union address to graciously congratulate Nancy Pelosi on her history-making selection as the first female Speaker of the House. Then he departed from the prepared text a second time to take a jab at Pelosi and the rest of the new Democratic majority of Congress.

"In the prepared text of the speech, sent out by the White House some 40 minutes before Bush ascended the House rostrum, the president was to say, 'Some in this Chamber are new to the House and Senate -- and I congratulate the Democratic majority.' When Bush delivered the line, however, he paid tribute to the 'Democrat majority.'

"Dropping the 'ic' from the word 'Democratic' may seem insignificant, but it was almost certainly a deliberate move by Bush, who has used the phrase 'the Democrat Party' for months as a way of needling his opponents. . . .

"For all of Bush's talk tonight about crossing party lines to work with the new Democratic Congress, it is the missing two letters that may offer the clearest indication of whether partisan tensions are really like to fade in the waning years of Bush's presidency."

The Proposals

Jonathan Weisman and Michael A. Fletcher write in The Washington Post that "senior Democrats for the most part responded with icy disdain, saying that Bush may be on their turf, but that he continues to clutch his conservative, free-market principles with little regard to the radically changed political terrain he faces.

"Democratic displeasure stemmed from both the substance of the proposals Bush laid out and the way he did it: Fully formed, without prior consultation and without an acknowledgment of who controls Capitol Hill. If White House officials want to work with Democrats to reach a compromise, then take credit, that would be fine, Democrats said yesterday, before the speech. But they blanched at being dictated to on policies vital to their constituents."

Robin Toner and Robert Pear write in the New York Times: "President Bush delivered a domestic agenda to Congressional Democrats on Tuesday that was, in large part, modest and a reiteration of past proposals. Where he did break ground -- on health care -- his initiative was quickly dismissed by leading Democrats and seemed unlikely to form the basis of bipartisan action."

On Energy

Edmund L. Andrews and Felicity Barringer write in the New York Times: "It was the second year in a row that Mr. Bush made 'energy security' a focal point of his State of the Union address, but his proposals on Tuesday were modest, and perhaps less achievable, than those he made a year ago when he said the nation was 'addicted to oil.'"

Richard Simon, Elizabeth Douglass and John O'Dell write in the Los Angeles Times: "President Bush's proposals to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 20% in 10 years include more specific and ambitious new goals than in previous White House statements, but they also appear to rely on assumptions about energy markets, politics and technology that some experts say are debatable, and include some apparent contradictions."

Steven Mufson writes in The Washington Post about the fine print of Bush's energy proposals.

Immigration

June Kronholz and Sarah Lueck write in the Wall Street Journal that Bush and Democrats are closer together on immigration than Bush and Republicans -- but that doesn't mean they're in agreement.

"Mr. Bush and congressional Democrats agree on the outlines of a bill, but they are far apart on details. Both agree on helping employers fill jobs with temporary workers. Without that, they say, the U.S. economy will remain a magnet for illegals. But the president insists those workers must eventually leave, a key demand of conservatives who fear the growing Hispanic population is undermining American culture. Generally, Democrats want to let them stay and eventually become citizens."

That strikes me as a pretty huge difference.

The TV Critics

Tom Shales writes in The Washington Post that "the speech was workmanlike and the presentation presentable."

James Poniewozik blogs for Time: "Much of the punditry leading up to the speech had said President Bush would not be delivering a 'laundry list' of proposals. It sure sounded like one to me. Ethanol, health care, Social Security, balancing the budget, school choice, energy independence, earmark reform, Hizballah, climate change, the surge. (No mention of 'New Orleans' or 'Katrina,' though. Glad that's all fixed!) That's not a laundry list? Maybe I don't have a big enough wardrobe."

Poniewozik also asked what was up with Bush calling attention to Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of the Baby Einstein company? "Huh? . . . Clearly she's a canny businesswoman and believes in her product. But what did Baby Einstein do, other than convince nervous yuppie parents that it was educational to buy mesmerizing video-crack-for-babies--replete with product placements--by vaguely linking them to art, literature and questionable research on the brain-building benefits of classical music for infants?"

Spin Zone

Among the vignettes from William Douglas, Ron Hutcheson and Maria Recio of McClatchy Newspapers: "The White House spin machine cranks up hours before President Bush appears before Congress on State of the Union night. A human traffic jam formed at the White House gate Tuesday afternoon as journalists lined up for briefings on the president's address.

"The A List: network anchors and Sunday talk show hosts, including Brian Williams of NBC, Bob Schieffer of CBS, Brit Hume of Fox and Tim Russert of NBC. They got to see a 'very senior administration official' - also known as President Bush.

"The B List: columnists William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and other opinion writers. They sat down with White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten.

"The C List: the White House press corps. They spent time with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, press secretary Tony Snow, domestic adviser Joel Kaplan and White House counselor Dan Bartlett."

Webb Watch

Michael D. Shear writes in The Washington Post that in his Democratic response, Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) "accused the president of taking the country into Iraq 'recklessly' and forcing it to endure 'a mismanaged war for nearly four years.'

"'Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary; that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism; and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable,' Webb said. . . .

"On the economy, he described a growing divide between rich and poor during the Bush presidency. 'In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table,' he said."

Here's the text of Webb's address.

Jonathan Alter blogs for MSNBC: "Something unprecedented happened tonight, beyond the doorkeeper announcing, 'Madame Speaker.' For the first time ever, the response to the State of the Union overshadowed the president's big speech. Virginia Sen. James Webb, in office only three weeks, managed to convey a muscular liberalism-with personal touches-that left President Bush's ordinary address in the dust."

Lame Duck Watch

MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell yesterday asked White House spokeswoman Dana Perino if Bush is a lame duck. Perino's response: "The president is never going to be a lame duck -- he's commander in chief at a time of war."