Pelosi looks nervous and uncomfortable. She is feeling the burden of all the eyes of her party members on her to determine which of Bush's lines to clap for and stand up for and which ones to ignore.
Next to her, Dick Cheney looks grumpy as ever. He seems to be somewhat sensitive to cues from Pelosi. Makes sense. First time he's sat at the head of the table above a mixed house.
The first big awkward moment comes when Pelosi decides to stand as Bush introduces his health insurance deduction ideas, which are meant to attract bipartisan support. It is almost comical to see the Democrats get Pelosi's message, and rise from their seats. Lieberman looks particularly ridiculous.
Cheney and the Republicans are far more restrained, but once the Dems are up, they heave themselves out of their seats too.
Out in the audience, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has an unattractively frozen smirk that reveals her difficulty at this event. Barack Obama has completely bailed out; he is looking down at notes the whole time. John McCain tries to counter the impression that he is only acting like a loyalist by winking at others, as if they know what he is up to. He acts much like a crackup in the back of the classroom.
I don't have the resources to apply an applause-o-meter tonight, but I'd suggest that those who do should slice and dice these applause lines to gauge which ones have any chance of bi-partisan support.
The next awkward moment comes when Pelosi rises to Bush's immigration reform initiative. Catching her move with his peripheral vision, Cheney rises too and the house unites behind an utterly vague idea.
Then, Bush moves to the energy crisis. Here, Willie Nelson and Kinky Friedman, must be standing and cheering back in Texas, because Bush mentions Biodiesel fuels.
Then, things get interesting. As Bush mentions global climate change, the people on the floor rise and cheer. The leaders -- Pelosi and Cheney -- have to follow. This passion for doing something on global warming, finally, seems broad-based.
A few decades too late.
Bush moves on to his anti-terror rhetoric. Here, his warrior lines bring easy standing ovations, and Pelosi has to play along. Bush likes easy applause lines, so he tells some stories about horrors averted by "heroes" and receives sustained applause in response. Everybody supports our troops.
(I think I see where he is going now. He will be honoring a homespun hero, the man who saved another man who had a seizure and fell onto the subway tracks in New York. His theme is all about heroes, overseas and domestic.)
Bush also is expressing his apocalyptic vision of the Al-Qaeda leaders, and is referencing directly the polarizing language of fear that has swept him to whatever political credibility he still possesses -- the politics of fear.
On and on, he goes. The echoes still are those of the Crusades, however -- a clash of civilizations, which is a dangerous image for him to wield. He is clueless about this rhetorical excess and how he has elicited a terrible response by playing into the hands of extremists the past five-and-a-half years.
(My, Condi Rice looks bad. She is trying to look tough, never a good decision for her. Of course, she too has designs on becoming Bush's replacement, though her odds are long.)
Now, Bush is waging his hardest fight -- convincing a doubtful nation that he can successfully win the Iraq War. The darkest shadow he is casting over that effort is Iran, the main terrorist-sponsoring nation in the Middle East.
But his "surge" strategy is making Pelosi and other Democrats grit their teeth. This is really hard on these guys -- they are people, despite years of political experience, and they cannot entirely hide their true feelings, their fears, and their contradictions.
Only one-third of the U.S. population, according to today's polls, support Bush in his performance as President and that is largely due to widespread doubts about the Iraq War.
More fear mongering, but now only the Republicans are rising. Pelosi and the Dems all sit stone-faced. They have no choice -- they've established a strong consensus opposing the pending escalation of forces.
The way Bush unifies his immediate audience is by repeating the throwaway line that we all support our troops, blah, blah. Of course we all support them! They are our sons and daughters. But that doesn't equate to feeling good that they are in harm's way.
Bush also talks about increasing the military by 92,000 in the next five years.
Then he turns to civilian reserves (read: National Guard.) Nobody clapped about this; it simply is an unsupportable political position.
Then he quickly plays the nuclear card on Iran. Rice still is trying to look tough, and it still is far from her best move. She just looks out of her league here.
Bush's commitment to an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord seems lukewarm, almost an afterthought. And he passes off North Korea in with a mere sentence.
He brings everyone to their feet by mentioning Darfur. He tries to sound compassionate. He again touches on working against HIV/AIDS in Africa, always a popular position.
A very odd part of the scene he faces is the presence of a minority of the Supreme Court (I counted only four justices) in the front row. They apparently feel constrained against showing any passion or commitment to anything. So they remain stoic.
Near the end of his speech, Bush starts honoring individual people who have done good one way or another. A basketball player. An entrepreneur. Then, bingo!, the story of Wesley Autrey, the man who saved another man when he suffered a seizure and fell before a New York subway train.
Then he turns back to military heroes.
The old men who sent this soldier there (read: The Joints Chiefs of Staff) are the heartiest of clappers.
Bush wraps up with a kind of sentimental appeal, which none of the other politicians can refuse to respond to.
The above may be rough, But since I wrote it in real time, much as I learned to do years ago as a correspondent for UPI, I'll post it as is.
(Note: I have edited this piece slightly for grammatical consistency and word choice the following day. -- DW)
***
The glaring omission, and I mean a huge and unforgivable one, is Bush failed mention the most serious social problem facing our nation -- how to rebuild the Gulf Coast. It is very sad to me that this greatest of all domestic challenges was totally ignored.
In the end, one of the main responsibilities of any government is managing the national economy, and Bush as our chief custodian has chosen to squander $1.2 trillion in Iraq that might have helped Americans desperately in need of help.
That he never even mentioned New Orleans and the Mississippi coast is an open invitation to John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, et. al., to move into the vacuum and articulate what in fact is our country's greatest domestic challenge.
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