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It is one of the toughest tasks in American politics and one of the least rewarding. I refer to delivering the response to the State of the Union.
Rarely had that job been more daunting than it was this time around. A war, uniquely, is a presidential kind of thing.
House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, the Democrats' man of the hour, knew what he was up against. His mission was to follow an event that even Democratic National Chairman Terry McAuliffe would later call "a fitting celebration of national unity."
President Bush had given a speech that, in its central thrust, was apolitical: Seeking to prepare the nation for a prolonged and demanding struggle against terrorism and the "axis of evil" nations that support it.
He'd ...