US: It sounded to many Americans like the same old song, but President George W Bush yesterday took his recalibrated political agenda to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville at the start of a roadshow aimed at amplifying his election-year message.
A day after his State of the Union address to Congress, the president sought to restore public confidence in his administration by addressing the unease polls show a majority of Americans feel about the direction their country is taking.
"I understand there's anxiety about a time of war . . . We must never lose sight of our capacity to lead this world toward peace, and we must never fear competition," he told an appreciative audience of Republican supporters.
The central message of Tuesday's speech was that the United States is strongest when it is engaged with and open to the rest of the world. Almost half the 40-minute address focused on foreign policy, as Mr Bush defended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as essential to the long-term goal of seeking "the end of tyranny in our world" in order to protect US security.
"In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honour in retreat," he said.
The president said that, as the US military campaign in Iraq succeeded, American troops would come home, but he declined to indicate any timetable for withdrawal, saying the decision was up to commanders on the ground.
Mr Bush said that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons and he told the new Palestinian leaders in Hamas that they must "recognise Israel, disarm, reject terrorism and work for lasting peace".
The president defended his decision to allow the National Security Agency to listen without a warrant to phone calls made by US citizens, a practice some experts say is illegal.
"This terrorist surveillance programme has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America. If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaeda, we want to know about it - because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again," he said.
The most eye-catching moment in Tuesday's speech came when Mr Bush addressed the issue of securing an affordable supply of energy. "Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world," he said.
He promised more money for research into alternative energy sources with the aim of replacing more than 75 per cent of America's oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.
The pledge is less dramatic than it sounds because most US oil imports come from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela, with less than a fifth coming from the Middle East.
Although most of the speech was designed to cheer up the president's Republican supporters, he risked annoying conservatives with a robust defence of his plan to allow illegal immigrants apply for temporary work permits.
"We hear claims that immigrants are somehow bad for the economy - even though this economy could not function without them . . . We must have a rational, humane guest worker programme that rejects amnesty, allows temporary jobs for people who seek them legally and reduces smuggling and crime at the border," he said.
The president proposed modest changes to make health care more affordable and to improve the US education system and repeated his call for the tax cuts he introduced in his first term to be made permanent. He effectively abandoned hope of reforming social security, once his flagship domestic policy.
Reaction to the president's address was mixed, with Democrats and many political commentators dismissing the speech as timid and tired.
Three-quarters of viewers said they approve of the proposals made by Mr Bush, according to a CBS News poll. Those who watched the speech were more likely to be Republican, according to analysts, but only a third who saw the speech thought the president will be able to achieve the goals he mentioned. The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, John Kerry, complained that Mr Bush did not ask Americans to sacrifice anything to achieve his goals of a stronger economy, less dependence on oil and better health care.
"What he's doing is fiddling at the margins," Mr Kerry said.
Republican Senator John McCain defended the president, welcoming his remarks on energy and immigration. "We won't solve our immigration problem until we have a guest worker programme," he said.