WASHINGTON, 30 January 2008 - President Bush's final State of the Union address aimed to reassure Americans who have grown increasingly anxious about a weakened economy and the global terrorist threat - and his widely criticized leadership.
The president highlighted the progress he said he's seen during his seven years in office, from Iraq to the US housing market to hurricane-stricken New Orleans. He also pushed a range of modest bipartisan agreements that his lame-duck administration is offering to strike with the Democratic-controlled Congress, in such areas as education and trade.
But a main challenge for Bush's address was simply being heard when most Americans are looking past him to the next president.
His speech came hours before Florida's presidential primary election and just eight days before Super Tuesday when voters in more than 20 states go to the polls on the biggest day of the primary campaign.
Republicans running for president rarely mention Bush, preferring to focus on conservative hero Ronald Reagan instead.
In Congress, all eyes were on Democratic presidential frontrunners Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton Monday night as spectators and reporters followed their every move during Bush's address.
Reporters noted that after his speech, Bush sought out Kennedy, his former partner in education reform, to exchange greetings. He then shook Obama's hand and said: "Hey buddy, how's it going," he said, according to Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who also sat next to Obama for the speech.
For the second year in a row, Obama sat next to Kennedy for the president's annual address.
Much is being made of the fact that Obama looked away when Clinton came over to speak to Kennedy. But the race between Obama and Clinton has become clouded with growing animosity in recent weeks as each side has leveled veiled accusations that the other has used race as a political weapon.
During Bush's speech, Obama and Clinton seemed to see eye to eye on Bush's domestic agenda, sitting firmly on their hands through most of the first half of his speech.
Clinton and Obama's divergent views on the troop surge in Iraq, however, were plainly visible.
When Bush proclaimed, "Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt," Clinton sprang to her feet in applause but Obama remained firmly seated. The president's line divided most of the Democratic audience, with nearly half standing to applaud and the other half sitting in stony silence.
In one instance Clinton appeared to gauge Obama's response before showing her own.
When Bush warned the Iranian government that "America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf" Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., seated to her left, to look in Obama's direction before slowly standing.
Obama strongly criticized Clinton last year when she supported a resolution calling for Iran's Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization. Obama supporters and other Democrats charged the vote would give Bush political cover to begin military operations against Iran.
There also appeared to be some division among Democrats Monday over whether to continue to pump money into the Iraq war effort. When Bush said he would "ask Congress to meet its responsibilities to these brave men and women by fully funding our troops," Obama and Clinton remained seated while Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, stood up behind them to applaud.
Dissension was not limited to Democratic ranks. Republicans generally praised the president for concentrating on key points of his agenda he believes can be accomplished in coming months, while maintaining his commitment to Iraq.
"We'll see about that when the time comes," said Hal Rogers (Ky.), a senior Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee.
Delivering the official Democratic response, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius urged Bush to work with Congress and help the U.S. regain global standing lost because of the war.
"The last five years have cost us dearly - in lives lost, in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same, in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere," she said. "America's foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies."
Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman-Schultz seemed to endorse Obama as she faulted the president for what she described as a lack of vision.
"The president did not speak to my generation, and the generation of young Americans who are looking for some hope, looking for some vision that will give them the opportunity to move in a new direction, on education, on health care, on bringing our troops home from the war in Iraq that we are hopelessly mired in," she said.
The president's final State of the Union address came with his public approval ratings still in the 30 percent range, with the economy the nation's top concern.
