J$P Instant Transcript! Reactions to the State of the Union address from Mort Kondracke, Chris Wallace, Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, Wesley Clark, and Nina Easton.

From Fox News, January 31 2006:

MORT KONDRACKE [ROLL CALL/FOX NEWS]: He seems to have reversed himself, and now he says "we are addicted to oil". And he outlined this advanced energy initiative, which sounds like something that was stolen right out of John Kerry, who emphasized that the United States could develop alternative kinds of fuel and lead the world in the technology that's required to produce them.... There was a kind of a setup to an election year theme, here.... If you oppose me, the implication is, you are standing with the isolationists, the pessimists, the retreaters, you're committing America's decline, all that kind of stuff. He's done this before, but on Iraq it was especially true that you either follow me toward victory, or you're part of the pullout brigade.

NINA EASTON [BOSTON GLOBE/FOX NEWS]: He can be very much attacked, with Democrats making the case this is a President, while he's given lip service to alternative energy, going way back to 2001, his focus has been on oil production, oil producers, at a time when profits are soaring, prices are high. And I think that makes him vulnerable to criticism from the Democrats, that he didn't switch soon enough, that he's a hypocrite, that he's just suddenly taking their song and run with it.... This speech reveals two things about this President. First, he's clearly got an aggressive world view. Still he believes that he wants to shape events in the post-9/11 world and not let events shape him. He wants to frame the foreign policy debate as a choice; he sees it as a choice between being aggressive and defeatism. And second, I think it reveals a stubborn, stick-to-your-guns Texan, because one little nugget in the speech was he still supports a guest worker program, despite the outrage from some conservatives.

BILL KRISTOL [THE WEEKLY STANDARD/FOX NEWS]: There was much more attention given to new big government energy initiatives than to defending the tax cuts. Only one sentence calling on making the tax cuts permanent. I thought the discussion on Iran did not make a commitment to prevent Iran, no matter what, from acquiring nuclear weapons.... This is a speech which is very conciliatory, non-combative, and the question is whether that's just a matter of style, the President wants to look bipartisan and a little bit above the fray? Or has he internalized a little bit, or have some in the White House internalized, the notion that he can't be quite as combative, he can't go to the country on these issues? He's got to sound more Clintonian and have lots of little big government energy and other programs?... There were debates in the White House over the last few weeks as to what tone he should take.... I think the squishes won all the internal White House debates, basically.

FRED BARNES [THE WEEKLY STANDARD/FOX NEWS]: This was actually a fairly conventional State of the Union address.... His proposals on energy, education, and health care were fairly small, not in keeping with the sort of big-picture ideas that the President likes. The interesting stuff was on foreign policy, and those of us who were briefed about the speech earlier, particularly on Iran, I agree with Bill. I think it was not quite the language "with heft", as it was described to me, that would really shake the Iranians.

CHRIS WALLACE [FOX NEWS]: This is a President who had a very rocky first year of his second term. 2005 was just tough. And this was a President who tried to turn that around.... It was a statement of his plan, and a statement, an affirmation of his political relevance in the three years remaining in his Presidential term.... Remember November. The President's approval ratings were in the 30s. There was talk that he might become a lame duck with three years left in his Presidency. What became clear again tonight is he is the driving force in this town. It's his agenda, and everybody else has to react to that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK [FOX NEWS]: What I do see is an effort to go against terrorists that's dominated our agenda to such an extent that, in many respects, we've sacrificed our principles. We dealt with dictators. We still haven't really held Putin accountable. We've lost this historic opportunity in Russia that Putin and the authoritarian regime is taking away the freedoms there.... You know what I've said about Iraq and the "Axis of Evil". First of all, I didn't like the label. Secondly, we went after the least consequential of the three when we invaded Iraq. Now we have our greatest commitment of resources against the least consequential problem, and it's impeding us in our effort to get the other two. So we've got to use the military commitment in Iraq as leverage, to force the Shia to let the Sunnis into the government and to change the constitution.... When you use phrases like "offensive", well we're not going to go down, I hope, we've gotten over the sort of kicking in the doors and roughing up the women that some people said we did some of over there.... This is not political for me. I spent my lifetime in uniform. I've studied these situations. I talk to people all the time. I very carefully follow these events. So this is my judgment as a strategist. It has nothing to do with politics. It's not about ambition, and it's not about partisanship. But I'll tell you this, that this country has to understand and respect others. We cannot just go in and bulldoze countries.