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SOTU III: Oh yeah. Remember when Jon Stewart played a piece of Bush’s inauguration speech–the part where he offered democratic reformers our support–at which point Stewart added words to the effect of, “offernotvalidinSaudiArabiaEgyptorPakistan”? It was funny, but Bush answered that last night. Jon Stewart would probably agree that it’s hardly the time to be screwing about with things in Pakistan, but give him 2/3 credit for going after Egypt and the Saudis. Nice.

There didn’t seem to be any retreat from Bush’s rhetoric of freedom despite the fact that it scared a lot of people, including Peggy Noonan. Good for him. North Korea is not the only bad place on earth, of course, but it’s probably the worst. A principled vision applied there would make up for his troubling lack of words for the North Korean people. There’s not much basis to assume that he will take action, of course, or what action he would take. But there is growing evidence that what Bush said to the people of North Korea would be heard there.

What Bush’s speechwriters haven’t grasped is that a ringing denunciation of North Korea’s human rights abuses would help advance the talks, not hurt them. Part of the reason the talks are going nowhere is the North Koreans’ belief that progress is unnecessary because we’re spineless and no threat to his regime. That belief makes the danger of a miscalculation very great.