The White House must have known that this wouldn't be a rouser. The president had nothing new to say about Iraq, yet he had to discuss it -- not the real Iraq, of course, but his own private Iraq that no one else can recognize -- for half of the speech. Even his list of foiled terrorist plots was a collection of golden oldies from years gone by. As to his bold new domestic agenda, it was at once so piecemeal and complicated that it defied description, so when it came to the most important element -- the president's new health care proposal -- he essentially declined to describe it. The utterly threadbare quality of the Republican domestic vision was encapsulated by the fact that the biggest Republican applause line on matters domestic came after the president vowed to reintroduce legislation limiting medical liability. No wonder these guys lost.
The White House must have known that this wouldn't be a rouser. The president had nothing new to say about Iraq, yet he had to discuss it -- not the real Iraq, of course, but his own private Iraq that no one else can recognize -- for half of the speech. Even his list of foiled terrorist plots was a collection of golden oldies from years gone by. As to his bold new domestic agenda, it was at once so piecemeal and complicated that it defied description, so when it came to the most important element -- the president's new health care proposal -- he essentially declined to describe it. The utterly threadbare quality of the Republican domestic vision was encapsulated by the fact that the biggest Republican applause line on matters domestic came after the president vowed to reintroduce legislation limiting medical liability. No wonder these guys lost.
So, knowing that no good would come from the speech, the president actually did something almost diabolically clever. He began by discussing the deficit, then shifted to a discourse on earmarks. Surely, the goal of starting off with the most stupefyingly boring topics known to man was simply to get Americans to change the channel. Eyes glazing over, emitting sudden snores, catching themselves slipping off the couch, viewers must have shaken themselves awake and gone channel-surfing. Anything but Bush on deficits, dear God. Was E! still screening the Oscar nominees? The Weather Channel had some nice stuff on fires in Malibu, didn't it?
But Bush's modest proposals, delivered with all the intensity of a guy reading a seed catalog, were countered by the most electrifying Democratic rebuttal in recent memory. That Jim Webb is an eloquent writer and plain speaker, an economic populist and a hard-headed opponent of the war in Iraq hardly qualifies as a revelation. Nonetheless, his discussion of the two Americas, and more particularly his blunt and straightforward evocation of what the economy has become for ordinary Americans, professionals as well as manufacturing and service workers, was stunning. Webb spoke of, for, and to an America whose existence Republicans hardly recognize. For that matter, you could go through the collected utterances of the vast majority of Democratic pols -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama among them -- without finding so unflinching a description of the effects of the globalized economy on the American people.
Part of Webb's genius -- and for eight minutes on Tuesday night, Webb was a genius -- was his ability to situate his message in the mainstream of American history. Concern for the average man? Check out Andy Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt. Extricating ourselves from a military quagmire? Follow the lead of Dwight Eisenhower.
What was particularly exhilarating was Webb's conceptual economy. No laundry lists. No need, with Speaker Pelosi presiding, to affirm the party's commitment to gender equity. There were two main issues separating Democrats and Republicans -- economic fairness and sanity in Iraq -- and Webb had the good sense to spend his eight minutes focused on those.
All praise not just to Webb, who emerged from the evening as the newest national Democratic star, but to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for selecting him to give the party's response. Praise to Pelosi, too, for setting up a special committee on global warming. Now that Bush is talking fuel efficiency standards, the Democrats need to maintain their clear lead over the Republicans on energy and environmental issues, and taking that issue at least partly out of the hands of John Dingell (D-Beleaguered American Auto Industry) was a very smart move.
Meanwhile, Bush is done speaking. Wake up.
Harold Meyerson is acting executive editor of the Prospect.
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