Press Sour On Bush Press Conf.

By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

For those who support the president, many wanted him to articulate a clear-headed and detailed plan to stabilize Iraq. Save his steadfast commitment to stay the course, the speech would have been a total loss for supporters.

For his critics, the president was as single-minded as ever; a stubborn man not ready to face the implications of his errors. Like a train, Mr. Bush's opponents say he lacks lateral movement -- it is a policy that must maintain forward momentum.

For the professional print and Web media that lives and breathes presidential politics, the collective sense was that Mr. Bush failed to wow. There was almost a Jungian undertone to journalists. They wanted Mr. Bush to articulate an Iraqi plan and reflect insightfully on the Sept. 11 commission hearings.

Below is a collection of noteworthy comment on the president's presser:

Michael Tackett, Chicago Tribune:
"In his firmness about the target date (June 30 deadline for handing over sovereignty in Iraq), Bush also raised expectations about progress in Iraq and invited debate ... On this night, there was no echo of Lyndon Johnson on March 31, 1968, when he said he would devote his time to Vietnam and not seek re-election ... it was a president trying to explain away the obvious calamities of the past few weeks in the context of a greater good. ... On Tuesday night, the president who likes to keep control made it plain that whether he keeps his job may well rest on events that he cannot."

William Saletan, Slate.com:
"[President Bush's] misunderstanding of the word 'credible,' however, isn't harmless. It's catastrophic. To Bush, credibility means that you keep saying today what you said yesterday, and that you do today what you promised yesterday... When the situation is clear and requires pure courage, this steadfastness is Bush's most useful trait. But when the situation is unclear, Bush's notion of credibility turns out to be dangerously unhinged. The only words and deeds that have to match are his. No correspondence to reality is required."

Matthew Cooper, Time.com
"If anything Bush was defiant. He clung to the claim that weapons of mass destruction might be found in Iraq... He wished he'd created a Department of Homeland Security, but failed to mention that he had opposed it... Once again, the president portrayed the war with Iraq as an extension of the war on terror. It was all of a kind, Madrid trains, Iraqi insurgents, Jerusalem buses. It's all one sinister ideology."

David Sanger, The New York Times:
"Mr. Bush drove home the singlemindedness that has become the hallmark of his presidency, his greatest strength in the eyes of his admirers and a dangerous, never-change-course stubbornness in the eyes of his detractors... He described an America chosen by God to spread freedom. He never used the word 'crusade,' which touched off a firestorm of criticism in the Muslim world when he uttered it soon after Sept. 11, 2001. But he described one."

Ronald Brownstein, The Los Angeles Times
"Bush's performance is unlikely to stem anxiety among Republicans already uneasy about poor reviews for his State of the Union address in January and a subsequent appearance on NBC's 'Meet the Press.' ... no one could doubt Bush's conviction that invading and rebuilding Iraq is central to protecting America ... Yet with Iraq in turmoil, his fate in the November election may turn on whether a majority of Americans agree."

Brownstein also had a telling quote from conservative bellwether and editor of The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol: "I was depressed... I am obviously a supporter of the war, so I don't need to be convinced. But among people who were doubtful or worried, I don't think he made arguments that would convince them. He didn't explain how we are going to win there.'"

Fred Barnes, TheWeeklyStandard.com:
"He was heroically on message, relentlessly repetitive, but effective in his own way... He's not aiming to please the Washington crowd - the political elite. His audience is outside the Beltway - the mass - and he does surprisingly well in appealing to it. How does he do it? By being plainspoken and amiable and down to earth. By sounding more like Midland, Texas, than like Georgetown or Chevy Chase. By honing in on a single message and not giving reporters much else to write about. Bush tried Tuesday night to dictate the lead of stories."

Josh Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo.com:
"Perhaps my opinions of the man and his record are too set in stone for me to provide an objective take. But, even setting aside the awkward moments where the president couldn't think of any mistake he'd ever made on foreign policy since 9/11, what I saw was a man with a quiver of cliches and a few simple stock arguments... It's become a bit impolitic in Washington to question whether the president really knows what he's doing or whether he has any sort of a detailed handle on what's going on on his watch. But I didn't see much sign of either. I just saw a lot of push harder, freedom, we're changing the world, ditching my policies means the terrorists win, etc. ... I saw a man on autopilot, and a pretty crude autopilot at that."

Shane Cory, WashingtonDispatch.com:
"It has been a tough few weeks for the president and this press conference was greatly needed ... The misfortune in the aftermath of his performance is that not much was offered to solidly answer the many questions our citizens may have. Instead it was a strict defense of his own presidency... Many, including this author, have felt that Iraq was a distraction from the war on terror... George W. Bush's view of the world is rightly biased towards the benefit of America yet his willingness to comprehend an international perspective is diminished by factors that only he and his advisors would be able to admit. ... Call it dumbness, dimness or denial but whatever the case, we all make mistakes and should be willing to not only admit them but to set them right as well."

Tom Shales, The Washington Post:
"Bush similarly struggled... to cite the single biggest mistake of his presidency. He looked baffled and incredulous. 'I'm sure something will pop into my head here,' he said, noting the intense 'pressure' of holding a news conference on TV. Of course people watching throughout the country expect a president to be able to handle that kind of pressure without blinking... He never stressed any particular point or added any emphasis. He might as well have been reading letters off an eye chart."

Nevertheless, Shales nails the fundamental point missed on most reporters, adding in closing, "By expressing tremendous confidence in his own judgment and actions, even to the point of not being able to recall a single mistake, it's likely Bush made Americans feel a renewed confidence as well."