*Yawn* I just glaze over when it comes to the content of these speeches. If subtle signals are being sent about the direction of policy, the shadings of warning to various enemies and the balance of obeisances to different constituencies, they go right by me. I assume that the numbers don't add up and that the promises include something for everyone (I heard the marriage-amendment line in that light). I'll have to "read" the speech as filtered through the spectrum of blogs. Of course the embrace between the Iraqi woman who'd just voted and the American mother who'd lost her soldier son was bound to be both a moving and a polarizing moment. Right now on MSNBC, Ron Reagan is calling it exploitative political theater and Norah O'Donnell is protesting that it was spontaneous.
But I have to say that my overwhelming impression was of Bush's new confidence, ease, and clarity. He seems to have relaxed into the job at last, as if deep down, during his first term, he doubted his own legitimacy and capacity. Before the November election, he often seemed defensive, defiant, at once inhibited and cocky. Now he seems to feel vindicated, redeemed, by his clear, if hardly massive, margin of victory and by the relative success of the Iraq elections. The smirk has largely given way to a warm smile, eyebrows down, brow smooth (no, I don't think it's Botox). Through my welter of mixed feelings about this, I'm surprised to discover that I'm glad for him, not the president but the man.
(UPDATE: I was probably able to feel that because, as with all of us, Bush's greater comfort with himself brings out the best in him -- makes him more appealing, or less annoying. He has managed not to gloat, at least publicly, and to show some humility and conciliation. While that could be a carefully crafted, Rove-coached performance, it could also be the genuine influence of his religion.)
It's strange to realize that he and Clinton are both my age exactly. (By the way, is Clinton all right? He doesn't look so good since his bypass -- he's thin and droopy The Enquirer claims he's suffered a bad depression, common in the aftermath of bypass surgery. Is that what's really ailing Hillary? She's not looking so good either.)
-amba
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