Baldilocks, Robert Prather and Matthey Hoy gave it mixed reviews. Dana, Spoons, Black Five, Professor Bainbridge, Cobb and The Other Xrlq all thought it sucked. Kevin Drum thought it hella-sucked. Then again, Kevin Drum also thinks the 8/6/01 PDB identified actionable intelligence, so who cares what he thinks? Similarly, “Reason” offers the usual carping.

On the plus side, Jay Non-Solo (or whatever the blogger formerly known as Jay Solo calls himself now that he isn’t) and the Puppy Blender liked the speech, as did Roger Simon and Michele Catalano. Of n second thought, maybe we shouldn’t really care what Michele thinks, seeing as she is a woman. On third thought, so is Mrs. Xrlq – and I don’t dare discount her views on anything – and she liked the speech too.

As for me, I thought 99% of the speech was right on. I give it an A- because of two relatively minor imperfections:

• Talking about the “pressure” when asked about his greatest failure. That’s a common job interview question. It’s also an incredibly stupid one. Since he isn’t interviewing for a job (OK, technically he is, but whether he gets re-elected in November is not up to the pencil-necked geek who asked that question) he would have done better to tell that twerp what a stupid question that was. Failing that, he could have simply said “Look, I’m sure there are things I could have done better with 20-20 hindsight, but frankly, I don’t know or care what they are because I’m more interested in doing the right thing now.”
• Shining on the guy who asked, not once but twice, why he and Cheney had decided to appear jointly before the 9-11 Soviet Commission rather than separately. There probably is a good answer to this question. I suspect it was something along the lines of “Judging how this 9-11 Commission farce has gone up until now, I can easily picture Prick Ben-Veniste or Bob ‘I’m Not John But I Sure Can Act Like Him’ Kerrey misquoting one of us in hopes of baiting and/or embarassing the other. It’s’ much harder to pull that crap off when both of us are there at the same time.” Or maybe the answer is something else, that might not resonate so well with 99.9% of the people who have been following the 9-11 hearings. Whatever that answer is, Chimpy McSmirk certainly didn’t give it. Not knowing what that answer is, I can’t rule out the possibility that maybe he shouldn’t have given it. But in that case, he should have said that. Instead, he blabbered about what a wonderful opportunity it was to testify at all. Lame.

However, those were relatively minor points. The rest of the Q&A, and the entirety of the speech, was excellent. He emphasized the key themes of fighting terror everywhere – here, in Spain, in Israel, and everywhere else – and on the importance of Iraq in particular. His speech did little for those who are committed to the war on terror, and less for those who are equally committed to opposing it, but perhaps those were not the groups he needed to be talking to anyway. For those on the fence – the ones who kinda, sorta support the war on terror, but could use a little reassurance given the flare-ups over the past few weeks – he hit this one out of the park.

I’ll leave you Spoons’s parting question, and my response:

I think the way to judge something like this is to ask, is the President better off now, than if he hadn’t given this press conference at all. I think the answer to that is a clear “no.” Anyone disagree?

I do. For one thing, I think that is the wrong question to ask; this press conference was there to selll the war effort, not to re-elect Bush. Any serious re-election efforts this far out from November would be futile anyway. For another, I think it is plain as day that the press conference has helped Bush’s stature some, for whatever good it does. Some people, myself included, think more highly of Bush following the speech than we did before. Others think he’s capable of better and has demonstrated as much in the past. Other still – Drum, for instance – will never like him no matter what he does or says. But can anyone seriously claim they think less of Bush as a result of tonight’s yesterday’s press conference?

UPDATE: Apparently, I misinterpreted Spoons’s “is the President better off now” question. I took it to mean is President Bush’s position vis a vis the November election. Spoons, however, has clarified that this is not what he meant; rather, he felt the speech failed to reassure people concerned about the progress of the war. I still think he’s wrong, though. The prepared speech had plenty to say about how crappily the the past few weeks have gone, and why the terrorist/insurgents are so desperate to destabilize things now, and why the effort is worth continuing even though it may get worse before it gets better. The Q&A session was a bit more awkward, but then again, look at the questions he had to work with. As a former boss of mine used to say, “you can’t make chicken s— into chicken salad.”

Speaking of which, I’m getting the impression that while opinions may be divided among non-liberal bloggers as to the quality of Bush’s performance, they are all but unanimous as to the poor quality of the media’s.