Nice Speech; Now What?

Last night's State of the Union speech is still fresh in my mind. Not much in the way of new programs were laid out. President Bush outlined a renamed Pell Grant for kids to get them out of underperforming public schools - that's school vouchers for those who aren't paying attention. Attaching the name Pell Grant to that program might raise some eyebrows, but the substance of the program is the same.

What does raise eyebrows is the fact that Democrats are still reflexively against tax cuts and against winning in Iraq. Sure, they're for bringing the troops home and cheered loudly when President Bush said that several brigades were either already home or coming home, but they were silent when President Bush said that the decision to reduce troop numbers rests with the military commanders in Iraq who determine whether the situation is stabilized to a point where reducing our troops is allowable.

Other than that - you could really take my roundup of reaction from last year's speech and use that here.

UPDATE:
Last year's speech didn't particularly help because the rhetoric didn't meet the acts of both the President and Congress. Where was the calls for fiscal responsibility for the past seven years? Demanding that Congress deal with the judicial appointments in an up or down vote? That was a subtle dig at John McCain, who helped engineer the Gang of 14 that got several nominees appointed, but otherwise killed the chances for many other suitably qualified nominees.

Of course, it would be nice if the GOP acted like this more often, and that Bush would act that way more often. They might still be the majority in both House and Senate. Tax cuts get cheers from GOPers, but Democrats sit on their hands. Demanding victory in Iraq gets cheers from the GOP, and stoic silence from Democrats.

This was a speech designed to help GOPers going into November. Just wait til some intrepid GOPer uses images from the cameras panning the audience to show what happens when you mention tax cuts or winning in Iraq. Focus on Hillary or any of the other leading Democrats and you get the idea.