Am I watching the same George W. Bush as the rest of the media?
To read the New York Times, you’d think that Cicero himself had graced the House with his presence Tuesday night. Bush “appeared both vigorous and confident tonight; gone were the deep lines that marked his face during the first month after the attacks,” gushed David E. Sanger. “More comfortable than ever in the formal setting of the House, he was mostly free of the verbal stumbles that sometimes mark his speech, and he struck tones of deep passion when he talked of the war, its victims and its effects on the national soul.”
The Times’ lead editorial was less effusive, but struck a similar Hail-to-the-Chief note. It said that Bush’s “prosecution of the war against terror has given Americans a new appreciation for his character and confidence in his leadership” and hailed his speech as one “delivered with force and polish” and “plain-spoken eloquence.”
The runner-up newspaper of record, the Washington Post, also ten-hutted to attention in its editorial, saluting “his well-delivered speech.”
“To his credit, President Bush delivered a wartime address, an honest and sober account of the long road that still lies ahead in the war against international terror,” the editorial enthused, somehow ignoring the glaringly obvious fact that Bush had every political reason in the world to give a wartime address — we’re at war — as well as political motives to mostly ignore the sputtering economy and the swirling Enron scandal. After mildly criticizing Bush’s failure to urge campaign finance reform, the Post concluded, “The president’s emphasis, though, was in the right place — in the need to stay the course on the war.” Similar lofty praise sounded all over the airwaves, from Fox News (of course) to CNN to NPR.
Was I watching the wrong channel?
The Bush I saw delivered a minimally competent, workmanlike speech. There wasn’t anything absolutely off about his delivery, but at times his emotions didn’t quite seem to fit him, like a suit of clothes one size too large. He punctuated the solemn wartime address with his usual odd, slightly inappropriate smirks. And the speech was utterly devoid of eloquence — unless, of course, the standard of comparison is Bush’s previous utterances. In a classic example of what Daniel Patrick Moynihan called “defining deviancy down,” as long as Bush doesn’t spew mangled words like a Tourette’s sufferer, he is apparently to be regarded as a kind of reincarnated combo pack of Demosthenes, Lincoln and Churchill.
I don’t say this as one so opposed to Bush that I’m blinded to his occasional capacity for first-rate oratory. I thought — and
