So how did the president do?

Tuesday night's was only his third since he came into office ( full transcript). The first one came right after the September 11 attacks, and the second just before the outbreak of fighting in the Iraq war.

Two questions immediately surface in the wake of this conference: Why now? And, how did he do?

04/13/04 Showdown in Najaf 04/12/04 Did the US miscalculate in Iraq? 04/09/04 Scoring the Rice testimony

Sign up to be notified daily: Find out more.

The London Times says that calling a press conference now is an " indication of how jittery Mr Bush's strategists have grown at the recent spiralling violence [in Iraq]."

Washington bureau chief for The Christian Science Monitor, David Cook, writes that holding one now "underscore[s] the political importance of the president's appearance," seven months before a presidential election.

David Sanger, offering analysis in The New York Times sees it as taking place because Bush faces "a moment of political peril unlike any in the more than one thousand days of his presidency."

But perhaps the best the answer to the "why now" question comes from Radio Netherlands, which reports Bush did so because he is both confident in expressing his convictions and concerned that Americans approve of them:

President Bush projected nothing but confidence; confidence in himself and in the successful transformation of Iraq into an exemplary democracy. Of course, he can't really do anything else, especially not in an election year when any perceived sign of vulnerability will be used against him. His rare agreement to take part in a formal news conference broadcast live in prime time to millions of American voters indicates that he is not so confident about their approval.

Consensus on the president's performance does not exist. As has become standard with most public judgments about Bush, the reactons span the gamut from outright endorsement of his performance, to near total skepticism that he can effectively and convincingly communicate his policies, especially in light of recent events in Iraq.

Bush " provided little new information about a series of questions that many Americans - and lawmakers in both parties - have been asking in the wake of escalating violence and the impending transfer of power to the Iraqi people set for June 30," writes Dan Balz in The Washington Post.

Continuing his analysis, Balz says:

Americans looking for an insight into what the president has learned from an occupation of Iraq that has been far bloodier and more difficult than the administration had suggested, or from the government's failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush had less to offer. He repeatedly did not answer pointed questions about his policies and was better at describing his vision of a democratic Iraq than in explaining how he will overcome the mounting obstacles to achieve that vision.

Presumed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry points to the Bush administration's ineffectiveness in working with the UN and a broader coalition of countries as prima facie evidence that Bush does not have a world view commensurate for the task of fighting the war in Iraq, or the greater war on terror.

Many pundits saw nothing in the president's opening remarks, or his answers to reporters' questions about Kerry's charge, to indicate that he has the capacity to admit he might be wrong, or has made mistakes. Shane Cory in The Washington Dispatch states this exasperation:

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. This faulty thought process is spotted by what some consider an arrogance that does not permit even a rogue sense of failure to cross its path. 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.

Supporters of the president, on the other hand, see his recent performance as "one of his best." It aptly conveys the way in which he communicates outside the narrow partisan concerns of the Washington beltway.

Conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan writes from his own website: "I found the president clear, forceful, impassioned, determined, real. This was not an average performance. I found it Bush at his best. He needs to do it more."

"If one was expecting a Kissingerian strategic case for America's intervention in Iraq, one wasn't going to get it from Bush," writes neoconservative Fred Barnes, in the pro-Bush Weekly Standard. The president's performance was so successful, says Barnes because:

His argument was simple. Freedom in Iraq is good for Iraqis, good for America, and good for the world. And though we've had some tough weeks recently, we're sticking in Iraq and with our plan to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.

No one should underestimate the political savvy of this president using the potentially hostile forum of a Washington press conference, says Barnes.

...he began the session with reporters by gobbling up 17 minutes of time they consider theirs. He devoted it to an opening statement – it was actually a speech – in which he said basically one thing: We're not flinching in Iraq. He was heroically on message, relentlessly repetitive, but effective in his own way. Washington hates this type of public performance, which is characteristic of Bush.

Part and parcel of judging Bush's performance lies in the different expectations he and the press bring to such a media event. Ultimately, come November, voters' expectations will be the final arbiter.

Also...
• Send reinforcements: U.S. general seeks more troops in volatile Iraq ( BostonHerald.com)
• Bush says US troops will 'finish work of fallen' in Iraq ( The Independent)
• Bush vows to finish 'mission' in Iraq ( Al Jazeera)

• Feedback appreciated. E-mail Jim Bencivenga .