CONFOUNDING:

A Speech as Autobiography: The president presented a vision that is both compassionate and full of resolve. In other words, perfectly in tune with America. (David Brooks, 01/29/2003, Weekly Standard)

THE CENTRAL POINT to make about President Bush's State of the Union speech is this: For the past several weeks, the American people have had growing qualms about going to war against Iraq. This speech will reverse that trend. If President Bush's speech had been a dud, it would have been cataclysmic for the administration. Instead, it was a strong, sober, moral, and determined speech, which will give the president the latitude he needs to pursue the right course.

When I scanned through the text of the speech--which is delivered to journalists just as the president begins--I have to confess I was a little disappointed. I knew this wasn't going to be a legal brief with newly released intelligence data--much of the substance I had heard before in recent speeches by Colin Powell and other administration figures. But when I saw the president deliver the speech, all my disappointments evaporated. In this speech, the president was able to show his resolve, his sober determination, his moral vision.

This was speech as autobiography. President Bush once again revealed his character, and demonstrated why so many Americans, whether they agree with this or that policy proposal, basically trust him and feel he shares their values. Most Americans will not follow the details of this or that line in the address. But they will go about their day on Wednesday knowing that whatever comes in the next few months, they have a good leader at the helm.

The first domestic policy section was predicate for the more important foreign policy section that followed. In that first section, Bush demonstrated that he is not the shallow, rough-riding cowboy that so many Europeans imagine him to be. He is instead a man who understands the need to discipline the growth of government, but who also, when he sees the opportunity to do good, is willing to use government in limited but energetic ways. I thought the decision to launch a major initiative against AIDS in Africa was a noble gesture, exactly the kind of great undertaking that befits the United States.

One wonders whether the infrastructure really exists in Africa to get the drugs to people who need them, but it is a worthwhile undertaking to at least try. The values of America may confound evil, but W's values sure as heck confound America. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 29, 2003 10:38 AM