[marbles]

Part-by-part:

1. Summary of his tax plan: Well worded, but not conveyed with much of a sense of urgency. Spent a good amount of air time on it, but showed little to no passion for an issue that may shape his presidency. Grade: D+

2. New proposals: I have trouble grading this part of the speech, since the material is so nonsensical for him. He spends 10 minutes talking about tax cuts, then immediately proposes billions of dollars in new spending on the hydrogen car, curing AIDS in Africa, and curing drug addiction. The whole section reeked of inconsistency with what has been a fiscally-conservative presidency to this point. I know he's supposed to be one of these compassionate conservatives, but puhleez... Grade: D-

3. Health care: The line about putting health care in the hands of doctors, nurses and patients was brilliantly done. Even some of the democrats jumped out of their seats... Musta made the "socialize medicine across the board" crowd sick to their stomachs, but screw 'em. Grade: B

4. Hooray for America: Okay, now W gets back to his bread and butter. He's done it better in the past, but even an off W is a good one for this bit. Not sure how many sound bytes made it into the international news media here, but no big thing. It's never bad to convince Joe Shmoe American that we're a benevolant big brother for the little guy. Grade: B-.

5. The case against Saddam: This is obviously the part of the speech he practiced in his pajamas Monday night. I have no numbers handy at the moment, but the man on the radio this morning said that support for the war had gone up slightly. I've already marked my calendar for Powell's follow-up on February 5th... Great teaser for the world to tune in. Grade: A-

Overall: The speech was an inconsistent yawner for the bulk of the time, but he closed strong, and hit the key points well. Overall, though, I expected better. Grade: C-