By host Tom Ashbrook:

There was a moment of sweetness last night as President Bush used the first words of his State of the Union address to mark the death of civil rights icon Coretta Scott King. And then, it was all business.

Fire and brimstone for radical Islam, for Iran and its nuclear ambitions, for Hamas on its election victory. A nod toward political harmony in America, then a knuckle-rapping for “isolationists” and “defeatists.”

George W. Bush has three years to go in the White House, and not a lot of running room, between big deficits and the Iraq war. It’s a tough spot, and the president looked, again last night, to make a virtue of toughness.

Two former White House insiders, David Gergen and Gene Sperling, unspin Bush’s State of the Union address.

Guests:

Anne Kornblut, Washington reporter for New York Times.;
David Gergen, professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and former White House advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton

Gene Sperling, President Clinton’s National Economic Advisor and head of the National Economic Council from 1996-2000. He is currently senior fellow for the Center for American Progress

Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa