denigrated the speech while liberal commentators didn't much like it either but they're still mad at george bush. >> some of us here on the factor were discussing why the president even bothered. why was he so boring? >> because it's not a bus by berkeley production with dancing girls. >> this speech was really in terms of partisan stuff, and how this war was started in terms of what the bush administration did to get us in this war, it was incredibly restrained even more than restrained. it was remarkably generous. >> everything about it was small. >> ludicrous. the presentation itself, i objected to the pictures of his kids in the background. >> thank you, mr. bush, for starting to withdraw those troops lucky enough not to die in your false war. >> i found this one perplexing. i didn't quite understand what the point was. >> then the story seemed to varnish. the collective judgment, iraq is yesterday's news despite the 50,000 american troops still station there had. what explains this lack of interest? fred francis, whose company 15