Instant critique
Bush, in his State of the Union address, came out against terrorists and for taking the fight to them. All of us are with him there, and only wish he hadn't taken that wrong turn to an irrelevant Iraq. Then he seemed practically to admit we'd invaded Iraq for bad reasons, but said it's now a war with terrorists that we can't afford to lose. This is the "I've made such a mess we have no choice but to let me keep making it" argument. It assumes there's a way out and that we can trust this president to find it in time. In the Iraq context, Democrats only got up to applaud when he mentioned supporting the troops. This means Democrats are going to give him his surge money, even as they adopt nonbinding resolutons opposing his latest ploy. Bush went over his health care initiative as if in a hurry, not bothering to mention the little part about treating high-cost employee health insurance plans as taxable income. It's just as well. Immigration is his strong suit with Democrats. On style, he did all right, mispronouncing only "nuclear," per usual. I think he'll poll up three to five points, breaking 30.