Bush was shining in last night's State Of The Union address, at least for the first half of it. When Bush spoke about the war on terror, the Democrats were put in their place. The things that Democrats refused to applaud spoke volumes about who the Democrats are. When Bush said that we won't wait to get "hit again" by terrorists, the Democrats sat on their hands. When the president said that we were in the Iraq war to win, and that any decision to withdraw will be made by generals on the ground instead of politicians in Washington, the Democrats sat on their hands. When Bush stated that fewer abortions were being performed now than in the previous three decades, the Democrats sat on their hands. (So, are they really "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion"?). And when Bush criticized Congress for failing to act on social security reform, the Democrats -- loudly applauded and taunted the president! How mature! I will never be able to take Democrats seriously on the social security issue again; indeed, I'm not sure that I ever did anyway. The RNC should use that footage in Republican campaign commercials during this year's congressional election season (I'll bet Karl Rove is already working on ways to use it). When the president spoke of foreign policy, he was in top form, more relaxed than usual, yet looking like a true leader.

The second half of the speech was less impressive, as he spoke about domestic issues. His idea to research alternative energy sources to reduce our dependence on oil from unstable parts of the world sounded good, but such goals seem unlikely to be met. Many pundits are remarking that Bush is asking the Democrats to work with him in bipartisan fashion, but this is mainly political talk. The president knows full well that the Dems have no desire at all to work together; they only wish to be obstructionists without offering alternate ideas of their own. Still, this speech may make it more difficult for Democrats to convince people that Bush is a divider.

The Democratic response, delivered by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, sounded more like a campaign speech by someone seeking office. This is not surprising, since Kaine has only been Virginia's governor for about two weeks. Kaine kept repeating the statement "there is a better way", which sounds suspiciously like the Kerry-Edwards campaign slogan "help is on the way". But he always failed to mention what the "better way" was. In what has become all too typical of Democrats, Kaine claimed that Bush was doing everything wrong with "poor choices and bad management", but offered no ideas on how to improve things. For someone who is being touted as a "rising new star" in the Democratic party, Kaine sure seems like more of the same old thing to me.

Democrats seem awfully confident that they will make significant gains in Congress this year, perhaps taking back one or more houses of Congress. Historically, such things have usually happened; during a president's second term, the opposition party usually makes gains in the mid-term elections. But the most recent case was an exception. During Bill Clinton's second term, when he was plagued by the Lewinsky scandal and impending impeachment, the Republicans didn't bother campaigning on ideas, assuming that the media was beating up on Clinton so badly that Republicans were guaranteed to make gains. But it didn't work that way; Republicans lost seats in Congress instead of gaining. The same thing can happen to Democrats, if they simply think that they will make gains because the press is beating on Bush, and they fail to offer new ideas of their own. Didn't they pay attention to what happened to John Kerry?