Most striking to me about President Bush's final State of the Union address Monday night was how unsurprising it was. Before the speech, White House officials set low expectations -- and Bush met them.
This is a president who had previously used this same stage of a packed House chamber to dramatically talk about an "axis of evil" to build the case for war in Iraq or to launch massive domestic initiatives like Social Security reform. But this time he offered little that was new or bold.
In fairness to the president, his hands are fairly well tied as he begins his final year in office. With a Democratic Congress, he's unlikely to get to very much of his agenda enacted. And truth be told, if he had walked up to the rostrum and outlined 10 complicated new initiatives, I'd be writing today about how unrealistic Bush was being.
So this was in part an acknowledgement of the new political reality, especially with that exciting, wide-open campaign to replace Bush getting more attention. (Did you notice how all the TV networks justifiably spent so much time on those delicious cutaway shots in the chamber of Sen. Barack Obama huddling with new best-friend-forever Sen. Edward Kennedy, while Sen. Hillary Clinton sat nearby, no doubt fuming?
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