was this just crowd pandering? is the president ratcheting things up in response to all the congressional investigations? i think it s probably a bit of both. as you noted, he had a terrible week. it might as well have been an infrastructure week on white house schedule. a number of things went wrong for him at home and abroad, obviously, in vietnam. i think that when he does these long free speeches, it s a way to regain lihis footing. he is setting the terms of what the conversation at least for the moment, at least for that day. i think that s what this speech was really about. i think he wanted to feel like he had that crowd on his side. he wanted to kind of stoke the outrage against certain members in the new congress. i think it was very effective. people there at cpac, after the speech, were talking about how