German language reactions to SOTU:

Switzerland's Neue Zuercher Zeitung has the headline: Bush's Announcement of New Proof is Welcomed Worldwide (it sounds better in German, trust me!). The article then goes on to play up the positive responses of even the usually skeptical French and Germans to the possibility of better proof that Iraq is hiding WMD's. And the NZZ's editorial ("No Declaration of War, Yet") is pretty straightforward: Bush is still building his case against Iraq and used the speech to continue this process; he also proved himself to be a good tactician in domestic politics by proposing a range of programs from tax relief through help for AIDS sufferers in Africa. All in all, the NZZ does a good job at providing a balanced overview of both the speech and the international reaction to it.

Bernd Pickert's commentary in Germany's die tageszeitung, on the other hand, reads the speech as a sign of Bush's "long-awaited" defeat. "The eagerly anticipated speech appeared, in many parts, to be the speech of a loser." Pickert mentions little of substance from the speech itself; according to him, Bush simply repeated a bunch of worn-out phrases, "as if repetition could, at some point, produce persuasiveness." Pickert spends more time discussing the increased confidence of the Democrats, as evidenced by the aggressive stance in the reply by Gary Locke. Pickert's conclusion: "A government that took power in controversial circumstances but that is nonetheless pushing an ultra-right agenda and ruining the country for the profit of a few, is now seeing the difficulties it deserves."

The Berliner Zeitung's article, titled "In the Name of the Nation of Brotherly Love," is sarcastic but manages to cover all the bases. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung's commentary from Wolfgang Koydl, Bush's Mission, reads the foreign policy part of the speech as disappointing. Koydl is, however, willing to admit that a U.S. occupation of Iraq could bring stability to the region if we stick around long enough and if we actually fulfill our promises to engage in democratic constitution-building. But Koydl is ultimately worried that an American triumph here would expose European weakness in foreign policy.

The Frankfurter Rundschau's account of the speech, by Dietmar Ostermann, is also called "Bush's Mission." Ostermann calls the speech "only average, and perhaps Bush's worst speech in a long while." He dismisses most of the domestic programs that Bush proposed; as far as Ostermann is concerned, even though the domestic audience is the usual addressee for SOTU's, Bush didn't really get "to the point" until the last part of the speech. The "point," of course, is Iraq. Ostermann argues that Bush pushed the domestic programs in order to soften up the public for war against Iraq. But even though HE found the speech uninteresting, he argues that the American public will still rally behind the flag no matter what the state of international opinion.

My impression: the Germans were bored listening to Bush's domestic proposals, and were mostly unimpressed by his case against Iraq. The folks at the NZZ have the longest attention span and are most on target.