I'm not sure President Bush came back from the brink, but he did a great job.
Behavior:
- Conciliatory yet confident in gesture and voice
- Great use of the teleprompter
- No smirks, frowns or shoulder shrugs (and only one nervous wink)
- Totally different in manner (and content) from his January 10 speech on increasing troops in Iraq
Compare to last year's State of the Union - interesting similarities!
Content:
- Conciliatory and smart at the start - "First President to start with these words, Madame Speaker..." as he turned to Nancy Pelosi. (Then he added another laud about how proud Nancy's father, a congressman, would be.)
- Tone - talked of domestic issues that would be positive - health care and energy. Although not new, bold and brilliant - gained enough new ground in the Democrats territory to be very effective. Particularly since it was the first 35 minutes of a 50 minute speech.
- The pall over the room was Iraq - he mentioned it late, there was silence, and he left it and went to stories of American heroes
- Stories - almost 10 minutes (with applause) was spent on Dikembe Mutombo, Julie Aigner-Clark fror Baby Einstein (give me a break - I love entrepreneurs and baby's love Baby Einstein but a minute of mention and another minute of applause for the founder?), Wesley Autry (deserves several minutes of applause) and Sergeant Rieman. Great use of the SHARP principles.<
Some interesting sidelights:
- Nancy Pelosi stood up to applaud a lot - often quicker than VP Cheney. Of course, sometimes she sat on her hands.
- Nancy Pelosi had eye dart - she should be very aware of what the camera (and we) see
- I expected Bush to be defensive. He wasn't.
- President Bush should always try to use the teleprompter with an audience. He is 100% better when he does not have to extemporize, or look at the teleprompter through the camera (his January 10 speech is a good example.)
- The State of the Union is an interesting ritual. It is really a scripted, written and read document - which the President begins by blatantly giving a copy to the Speaker of the House. But it is treated as a "live" event, with basically choreographed applause.
- President Bush did very well. He was conciliatory, yet confident. He was smart in spending little time on Iraq, and concentrating on domestic health and hope, putting forth apparently new (although not bold) initiatives with force and vigor. He surprised me.
- Behavior and confidence carry so much more weight than content. President Bush did not ACT as if he was at the lowest approval rating poll level in history, and that very few agreed with his policies on Iraq. Yet he came out strong. Although no dramatic new initiatives domestically and no new initiatives on Iraq - it felt as if it was fresh.
Frankly, if he had the demeanor and content and pall of his January 10 speech, we would be in for a very depressing last two years. I'm glad he wasn't. President Bush has a tough road to navigate with Iraq, but I think he has gained some time. After tonight's speech, he gained back some relevance. Now, we'll see how it plays out...
