Bush Speechwriter Michael Gerson: "Promising to change the tone in Washington, he managed to be petty, backward looking, defiant and self-justifying....Tonight, he lost his grip on reality."
A New York Sun editorial: "Here is a president who was lofted to high office on a campaign that, among other things, would extend the most basic rights vouchsafed in our constitution to foreigners accused of terrorism. And yet who denounces the Supreme Court to its face, while they are seated respectfully before him and while his party comrades leap to their feet and cheer him on, for holding, en passant, that the rights of free speech might be exercised by foreigners here as well as the rest of us. All in all, it was a bizarre, even shameful moment. And a mistake....after watching the performance last night, it wouldn't be in the least out of order if the members of the court chose not to attend the next speech. Why would they want to subject themselves to being denounced to their face while surrounded by congressmen cheering their denouncer?"
New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman: "Stupid...Not only is he accepting the general Republican world view, he's parroting their dumb attacks on his own policies."
Politico.com's John Harris: "This president was in a political jam when the evening started. And it was hard to see how he was in any less of a jam when the evening ended."
American Enterprise Institute's Nick Schulz: "The definition of chutzpah."
The Economist: "a waste of a podium."