Blogs

The Speech

By Brian Montopoli

January 24, 2007 / 10:28 AM EST / CBS News

(CBS)

Ah, the morning after. Let's talk coverage, shall we? It was, according to Tim Graham of the conservative Newsbusters blog, "dominated by gloom for President Bush" on CBS. (Well, maybe not completely dominated: Bob Schieffer did say "this was a much better speech and a much better argument for his position than he made when he made the speech announcing the troop increase two weeks ago.") The fact that "CBS IS F------ SHILLING FOR THE POLITICO" had Wonkette "drinking the rest of this bottle," which strikes me as something of an overreaction. (Although, to be fair, DC-types are surely tired of hearing about the much hyped new Web site, which CBS News has partnered with.) Tom Shales, meanwhile, writes that it was the Schieffer show:

"Although Katie Couric is the presiding anchor on CBS, she increasingly relies on the expertise of Schieffer when covering big political events. They are now virtual co-anchors. While Couric read from prepared historical information about past State of the Union addresses, Schieffer did the up-to-date political analysis. In fact, he seemed to get even more screen time than Couric in the minutes leading up to the speech."

And the LA Times wrote that as "President Bush prepared to deliver his sixth State of the Union address with the lowest approval rating of his presidency, congressional Democrats who couldn't get airtime on the local news six months ago shared brownies and coffee with CBS anchor Katie Couric." What, no munchkins?

At least, according to a new CBS poll, the speech "Has [an] Up Side For Bush." The story on the poll notes that "[e]ight in ten speech-watchers approve of the proposals Mr. Bush made in his speech." Not that it will much help his party in '08: According to the Daily Show's Samantha Bee, the 2008 election is already decided. She's calling it for Hillary Clinton. In a segment mocking the media's obsession with constant polling to see who has moved ahead in the race for the presidency, she claimed that Clinton went up more than a point in the polls between 8 pm and 11 pm last night. Noted Bee: "By labor day, she'll be polling 50,000 percent."