"Every one of them are important," the president replied.

With the benefit of a teleprompter, practice and the able hand of speechwriter Michael Gerson, however, Bush's 49-minute "Speech to the Congress of the United States" improved his response to this question. In a fairly masterful performance, Bush was at his bipartisan, platitudinous best.

He was confident and relatively fumble-free, with a few exceptions. ("Education is not my top priority," he said, to which he was tellingly met with one of the 88 traditional incidents of too-frequent enthusiastic applause. After the clapping died down, he corrected himself, saying, "Education is my top priority.") He talked strong and courageous on Social Security and Medicare reform, kind and caring on education, principled on tax cuts.

He chortled, smiled and kept to the script almost word for word, much of which was borrowed rather liberally from his campaign stump speeches -- "Leave no child behind," "The surplus is not the government's money, the surplus is the people's money," "I like teachers so much, I married one." Plus, of course, the obligatory Spanish. "Juntos podemos," he said. "Together we can."

Having read a poll or two in the past few weeks, the Bush marketing department made a number of savvy decisions. Bush seemed to have one conservative principle only -- for the tax cut he proposed in the campaign, and on this he even seemed like the moderate in the room.

"Some say my tax plan is too big," Bush said as the Democrats applauded.

"Others say it's too small," he said as the GOP clapped on cue.

"I respectfully disagree," he said as the room laughed. "This tax relief is just right." And the crowd went wild.

Everything else was straight out of the Democratic Leadership Council playbook. "Government has a role, and an important one," Bush said. "Our new governing vision says government should be active, but limited; engaged, but not overbearing."

But the $1.6 trillion tax cut, the most controversial part of his budget proposal -- which, in pure dollars, benefits the wealthiest Americans more, though gives lower-income Americans the biggest-percentage tax cut -- was only presented after a list of other priorities, as if he were crafting the budget before our very eyes, paying off what he needed to before giving us the leftover cash.

He discussed it only after talking about education; about increasing Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement spending programs by $81 billion; and about upping discretionary spending by 4 percent -- slightly more than the rate of inflation -- while also paying down the debt, a task he has only recently added to his list of priorities.

"And then when money is still left over," Bush said, "my plan returns it to the people who earned it in the first place."

The tax cut was Bush's clear emphasis. Instead of trotting out the millions of dollars that he, Vice President Dick Cheney, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, Commerce Secretary Don Evans and the rest of the millionaires in his Cabinet would save through his proposed tax cut, the president trotted out the Ramos family from West Chester, Pa.

Steven and Josefina Ramos would stand to save just a tad more in the Bush tax cut than the average family -- $2,000 as opposed to $1,600 -- but "this is real money," Bush said. "'Two thousand dollars a year means a lot to my family. If we had this money, it would help us reach our goal of paying off our personal debt in two years' time,'" Bush quoted Steven Ramos as saying.

As always when it comes to these kinds of speeches, the night was filled with such inelegant flourishes -- the camera flash to the nun when he mentioned faith-based charities, or to Special Olympics silver medalist Windy Smith and the formerly pugilistic Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, John Street, who sat up with the first lady. Or the president's call to double the funding for the National Institutes of Health in honor of retiring Rep. Joe Moakley, D-Mass., who faces an untreatable form of leukemia.

Of the roughly 17 standing ovations Bush received, the one for Moakley was in the top half, enthusiasm-wise. It was not quite as enthusiastic as the one following Bush's cry that "the people of America have been overcharged and on their behalf, and I am here asking for a refund!" but it was more so than the one that followed his request that Congress give him fast-track trade-negotiating authority.

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