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.
