Writing in The Nation, David Corn (the mag’s Washington editor) uses his “Capital Games” column to evaluate Bush’s State of the Union Address, concluding that Bush and Co.’s rhetorical strategy left the, uh, Left, precious little wiggle room.

The success of the speech, as Mr. Corn sees it, clearly chaps him (for instance, we’re still treated to phrases like “a so-called war on terrorism”), but once you wade through the predictable lefty spin and ironic half-swipes — Bush’s team is a “posse”; Bush “declared himself a roughrider” — there’s a kind of grudging respect percolating through this piece. To wit:

He sure didn’t leave the Democrats much room to maneuver. When George W. Bush delivered his first State of the Union address — a two-ply speech divided between a so-called war on terrorism and a supposed war on the recession – -he depicted himself as a Rooseveltian president, as in both (Republican) Teddy and (Democrat) Franklin Delano.

[…]This was calculation, not conversion. Taking a cue from Bill Clinton, Bush has learned the value of strategically appropriating portions of the rhetoric and policies of his foes […]

[…]Karl Rove and Company could be proud of the speech, for it provided few openings to the opposition. One cliche among Washington commentators has long been that the Republicans are the Daddy Party (the warriors, the tough-on-crime guys) and the Democrats are the Mommy Party (the gang that worries about health care, education, and such.) Bush was striving to be both Ma and Pa. Seeking the holy grail of most presidents — a strategic political realignment — Bush is attempting to turn the GOP into the Both Parents party, which smites enemies abroad and then tucks you in when the economy falters.

[…]Perhaps Democrats are hoping that in this election year Americans who vote will eventually pay sufficient attention to the policy fights of Washington to conclude the Democrats are indeed the better mommies and that voters will believe that even during a war economic concerns come first. But with the Democrats praising Bush’s performance as a daddy, and with Bush using his wartime-enhanced standing to score points as a mommy, there is not much of a contest at the moment between Bush and the Democrats.

‘Those of us who have lived through these challenging times have been changed by them,’ Bush said toward the end of his address. That surely is true for him. As crass as it may be to suggest, he was lucky September 11 happened on his watch. (It’s easy to believe those post-9/11 reports that quoted Clinton saying he wished he had been confronted with such a tragedy.) But, as this speech demonstrated, Bush — now an amalgamation of TR, WW, FDR, JFK, WJC and (don’t forget) RR — and his posse have been damn smart in figuring out how to make the most of it.

Render that final sentence into moderate-speak and suddenly The Nation is palatable once again (like when I was an undergrad, for instance!). Here, allow me: “But as this speech demonstrated, President Bush — drawing on the best ideas of his predecessors in order to bridge a decade-long party gap — and his administration have been damn smart in bringing the country together so forcefully in this, a time of war.”

Corn for Bush in 2004…?

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