The reaction to the SOTU appears to depend on what the listener wanted. Those wanted broad vision and grand themes were dissapointed. Those who wanted an election stump speech got a little of it. A laundry list of accomplishments makes sense to start a reelection year.
Yes he could have focused on the Savings accounts but by mentioning them now and talking about them for the next 9 1/2 months it will still be an issue in the election. It's often noted the American people don't begin to focus on elections until after Labor day or the World Series so Bush has time to push this concept.

I have to respectfully disagree with you OJ. As Harvey McKay points out in "How to Swim with the Sharks", the best way to destroy a vision in the public marketplace is to lay it all out up front. A vision that is in any way too revolutionary will outstrip people's imaginations and get picked apart, ridiculed and killed by those who tend to do those things (press, politicians, activists, etc). It tends to crystalize the opposition.

He used the exammple of the Mall of America in Minneapolis. On their first attempt the developers laid out their ideas in a showy public forum and got hammered. Everybody had some aspect or other that they disliked and the project died. On their second (and successful) attempt they just started to develop the project piece by piece. They bought property, they worked with local authorities and community development organizations. By the time they made their second announcement they were half done and most of the key people were on board. More important, the public could now see how it could work and so believed it would.

If the president is serious about accomplishing what he wants to accomplish (as we know he is) he is going about it the right way. Put the pieces in place and tie them together once they have collective momentum.

Ideas actually don't matter -- this is the lesson I have taken from the Bush administration and the GOP in general.

Jeff - better said than I. I think this is how Bush approaches things. The only downside to this approach is that your own supporters (i.e. conservatives on the education bill, medicare reform) don't realize what's going on and sit around critizing you.

Charlie -

Considering that since 1980 American politics has been almost all about GOP ideas suplementing and/or supplanting the previous legacy of Dem ideas, is hard to take your comment very seriously. I am, however, curious enough to ask: Were do you go for ideas?

Chgarles:

The lesson is the opposite--ideas are all that no matter, regardless of how you achieve them. The money spent on NCLB pales in comparison to getting Ted Kennedy to pass a voucher bill. It's money that truly doesn't matter--a hard lesson for fiscal conservatives to learn

jeff:

That's quite perceptive and has worked with NCLB and Medicare reform.

AWW:

You are correct about some supporters but I also believe that the same people would have huge issues with the comprehesive whole as well. Better to have them picking at peripheral details than attacking the vision at its heart.

Charles:

You might be correct, but not in the disdainful way you expressed. Some management theorists, Drucker in particular, make a clear distinction between "Men of Ideas" and "Men of Vision". They don't think the same way or operate the same way. In general he believes that visionaries tend to have a much more profound impact. He also says that "Men of Ideas" tend to underestimate visionaries because they can't understand them.

It is interesting that the last three visionary Presidents, FDR, Reagan and G.W. Bush were all considered to be intellectual lightweights at the time of their ascendancy.

By the way, OJ's review of Hostetler's "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" shows the shortcomings of ideas as an end to themselves better than almost anything I've ever read. Take a look.

Jeff:

Interesting point. But then, the point of having a vision is that you can see more clearly by disregarding the irrelevent. Those who do not share the vision understandably view it as simple ignorance.

You're right Mike. Even more to the point, often the vision is formed on a general level but not precise to the finest detail. The visionary still goes ahead an begins implementation.

This is one of the advantages of the Japanese auto manufacturers, particularly Toyota. Their creed is "ready, fire, aim". They plan on a general level knowing that no amount of planning can anticipate all contingencies. They then begin implementation and deal with the contingencies on the fly recalibrating as they go. To the technocrat the method looks chaotic, a lot of fits and starts, but the results are almost always superior because the detail planning takes place closer to the real issues and is usually done by the people who have to live with the results. The results also come a lot faster.

Most American and European manufacturers take much longer to engage in highly detailed up front planning, usually by people far removed from implementation. But, the devil is in the details during implementation as the unforseen contingencies require constant, time consuming debugging. The implementation appears more orderly but is less effective and much more time consuming.

Now look at the critique of the President's Iraq reconstruction policy. "Underplanned, under-resourced, done on the fly". But, as usual the results of directed action appear to be far superior to any results the detailed planners at the Pentegon or State could have hoped to achieve.

It's the battle of the "stasists" versus the "dynamists" that Virginia Postrel writes about. As usual, the dynamists kick tush.

Bush's speech was what the people want to hear in an election year. He didn't give it for the pundits.

Jeff;

Ah, that brings back memories. In grad school I had a visionary professor who relied on me to do the detail work. So I don't see any inherent conflict between the two sides. Neither is sufficient by itself and both benefit from the other.

AOG:

Absolutely correct. The successful visionaries trust the vision but recognize their limitations. That's why they surround themselves with high-powered intellects and dynamic managers to guide the process (Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheyney, etc). They also use the vision as a guiding light and tend to correct errors quickly when they see the process going off course (O' Neill, Gardner, etc.). To the critics this is a sign of organizational weakness when in fact it is a sign of organizational strength.

Hannah Arendt put it best: "If I do not understand the abstract, how will I deal with the concrete? If I do not know the concrete, how am I to understand the abstract?"

For the UN crowd, there is no concrete - just words and fluff. That is why Pelosi's response last night was so awful. She has never met a Rwandan or a North Korean, but those cocktail parties with UN delegates - they are the best. And meeting all those foreign leaders - my conscience is cleansed by them.

Someone should introduce her to Vaclav Havel or Solzhenitsyn (or even Mugabe's main opponent, whose name escapes me).

Charlie - Ideas are all that matter, but it's a mistake to think that talk persuades people to change their ideas. Talk often polarizes. Action -- experimenting, showing, bargaining -- is more effective at changing minds and brokering compromise in order to create consensus. Bush is avoiding talk and building consensus through action. It's partly his personality and personal strengths, but it's also an effective approach.