The first State of the Union of President Bush’s second term could have been an opportunity for simple triumphalism – the success of elections in Iraq this past Sunday had swayed even skeptics, and he had been returned to office with an increased margin of popular support and Republican control of Congress. But it is unlike this country-club cowboy to play it safe, and so he presented an ambitious and unapologetic agenda to the nation. It was a striking speech of highs and lows: bold policy punches and rhetorical head fakes; conservative cheers and liberal jeers; unrestrained smirks and unforgettable tears.

Domestic policy ambitions don’t get any bigger than the president’s take-it-with-both-hands embrace of the third rail of American politics, Social Security reform. This is the intended keystone of the second-term domestic agenda – an attempt to recast the greatest Democratic president’s greatest legacy in explicitly Republican terms of individual choice and free-market investment. The case for action was presented in reasoned tones armed with facts and figures, all wrapped up in an appeal to generational responsibility. It was interrupted by a reaction unprecedented in recent State of the Union speeches – outright jeers from the Democratic side of the aisle.

This was too broad a “spontaneous” response not to have been scripted by Democratic strategists who believe Social Security reform could be their party’s domestic policy Waterloo – a win-at-all-costs fight to stop the advancing Republican army. But the response itself reinforced the perception that Democrats are running out of ideas. They clearly intend to present an all-out offense that will attempt to make this the Republican equivalent of Bill Clinton’s failed bid for health care reform. But as they seek to regain their electoral legitimacy, the Democrats must propose alternatives, not merely oppose reform. A pure stonewall strategy is irresponsible, given that some future president – Democrat or Republican – will have to enact reforms at some later date if this effort fails.

Moreover, the president has proven himself to be a far more persuasive salesman than anyone the Democrats have in their current ranks of elected officials. He proved that again in the speech. While Democrats were braying their discontent, Mr. Bush respected the American people’s intelligence enough to make his case in dollars and sense. Then, showing that he instinctively understands the strategic appeal of triangulation at least as much as his predecessor, the president invoked the names of four centrist Democrats who have vocally supported varying degrees of Social Security reforms in the past: former Congressman Tim Penny, President Clinton, and Senators John Breaux and the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In fact, it was interesting to note that in a speech presented by a highly partisan president to a Congress controlled by his own party, Mr. Bush did not mention a single significant Republican figure outside his Cabinet by name. He did, however, find the time to invoke these previous Democratic figures as well as close the speech by quoting the biggest Democratic icon of them all, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

This is a clever and effective speech technique – the rhetorical head-fake – used by the president in other places throughout the address. For example, he got bipartisan applause when he announced the goal of “reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy.” But before Democrats knew what had happened this was quickly followed by an announcement that he would resubmit his previously defeated energy proposal, the benignly named “clear skies” initiative which promises a diet including “clean coal,” ethanol, hydrogen cars, decreased regulation, and expanded nuclear power.

Likewise, social conservatives got their wish when the goal of a constitutional ban on gay marriage was resubmitted by the president after a lyrical lead-in, discussing how “many of my generation, after a long journey, have come home to family and faith.” The celebratory reaction on the right side of the aisle was more appropriate to a rodeo than discussion of a constitutional amendment.

But perhaps the biggest gap between soaring rhetoric and intended actions was in the crucial area of fiscal responsibility. In his first term, the president pursued an agenda of big-government conservatism. Nonmilitary discretionary spending has gone up dramatically, outpacing the comparative restraint of the Clinton years. Now the president presented himself as a born-again fiscal conservative, promising a pro-growth budget that limits growth of discretionary spending below inflation and cuts the deficit in half by 2009. These are admirable and overdue goals, but the guns-and-butter approach of years past makes it unclear how he will accomplish this feat. The speech offered few details, other than a promise that his next budget will “substantially reduce or eliminate more than 150 government programs.”

This president knows he has momentum, and to the frustration of his many critics at home and abroad he does not intend to ask permission as he plows ahead with his stated agenda. Like great presidents before him, he enjoys wielding power, a characteristic that was evident in his frequent smiles and telltale smirks to the assembled audience, all while Vice President Cheney sat behind him looking like he swallowed a canary.

But for all the artful articulation of the evening, the greatest moment was not scripted: when the mother of slain Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, leaned over and gave her son’s dog tags to an Iraqi human-rights advocate whose father was murdered by Saddam Hussein. Their hug lasted more than half a minute, and the tears they shared caused the president to visibly tear up as well. This human gesture made all the politics look small. It refocused the night back toward people and principle. The memory of their shared emotion will endure when all the words have faded, and may prove a truer guide for directing policy over the next four years.