US media weigh up Bush's speech

Much of the US media has found President George W Bush's long-awaited speech to the Republican convention impressive but short on detail.

Mr Bush "brought down the house", Fox News said.

On CNN, Jeff Greenfield said the basic theme of the speech was: "I know where I stand, I know who I am and the second term will be better than the first."

According to political commentator Todd S Purdum in the New York Times, Mr Bush sought to show he was a strong steward who had led the US through four tumultuous years,

There are a lot of Bush-haters, but when Bush gets up to speak, they listen to him and they like him Bill Schneider CNN

But "big policy ideas" such as restraining government spending and tax reforms were vague and specific policies such as more funding for community colleges and rural health centres were "mostly small", Mr Purdum added.

The Washington Post said Mr Bush had failed to explain how he would pay for his "almost Clintonesque laundry list of proposals".

But it did accept that the president had showed real emotion while talking of comforting families of soldiers who had died in Iraq.

'Same again'

Ronald Brownstein wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Mr Bush had projected "the forceful confidence and commitment to his course that have become hallmarks of his presidency, leavened by some effective self-deprecating humour".

But "nothing said... suggested that a second Bush term would look very different from the combative first four years that had thrilled supporters and enraged critics in equal measure", he added.

By focusing more on long-term changes than immediate responses to challenges in the economy and Iraq, Mr Bush was looking at the stars and risked "stumbling into the ditch", the Los Angeles Times writer said.

The Boston Globe said Mr Bush would have a hard time proving that he had made the US more secure after the attacks of 11 September 2001.

"Certainly, he did not prove it last night," it said.

However, CNN's Bill Schneider predicted that President Bush would get a small bounce in the polls.

"There are a lot of Bush-haters, but when Bush gets up to speak, they listen to him and they like him," he said.

But for Gebe Martinez, writing in the Houston Chronicle in the president's home state of Texas, the contest had essentially returned "to where it was five weeks ago, before the national Democratic and Republican conventions - deadlocked".