SOTU IMPRESSIONS. The speech, technically, struck me as fairly unobjectionable. Bush didn't much stumble or shock, the rhetoric never soared but rarely fell (with one major exception). The few policy ideas outlined were uniformly awful, of course, ranging from the wreck of a health policy proposal I tore apart earlier to the surge. I'm a bit more concerned about Bush's promise to "submit a budget that eliminates the Federal deficit within the next 5 years." That's a savvy move that will be hard, politically, to reject. If Democrats accept it, however, their freedom for new spending and affirmative policies will be near nonexistent. The punditocracy does love balanced budgets, and I somehow doubt we'll hear much about Bush's suspiciously recent discovery of the deficit hawk within. All that said, I found myself curiously detached from the whole affair. The Democratic Majority robbed the threat of action from Bush's rhetoric. His cruel health plan and Social Security fear mongering are evanescent annoyances, not upcoming agenda items. He's weak, and you sense he knows it. The speech hit the notes it needed to and no more. It was, this time, a formality, a book report bound and delivered to Congress, just as the assignment called for. He sought checkmarks for attendance and completion, and went home. Webb's response, in contrast, was strong, clear and just. His voice vibrated with outrage and urgency, and his speech laid out Democratic principles with a confident, spare, eloquence. By far the best SOTU response I've seen. I should note, as an interesting aside, that I spent a few minutes chatting with Webb earlier in the day, and he seemed perfectly at ease. Not a hint of anxiety in the freshman senator about to give a nationally televised response on behalf of his entire party. It struck me as vaguely odd at the time, but perfectly appropriate given the quality of his performance. Webb's appeal, I think, comes from his obvious and genuine conviction. He does have an ideology, and it makes him a far more compelling messenger than the technocrats and establishmentarians Democrats tend to rely on. --Ezra Klein
