The conventional wisdom on the State of the Union address is that George W. Bush's ambitions, which are normally Texas-sized, have been reduced to the dimensions of, say, Delaware. But those who wish to shrink this president should bear in mind that he has three more years in office.

On ABC News immediately afterward, correspondent Terry Moran concluded, "This was a chastened President Bush." And a "news analysis" in The Washington Post the next day was headlined, "Lowered Expectations Reflect Political and Fiscal Realities." Even the unabashedly conservative GOPUSA.com seemed in agreement with the mainstream media; its headline read, "Lacking Passion, President Still Hits Key Notes."

A good example is Iraq. There's not much public appetite for the soaring rhetoric of democratic transformation, but Bush delivered it anyway because that's what he believes. So for as long as he's in office the bulk of our forces will likely stay in Iraq, and Republicans will support him. The Democrats will gripe about Iraq, but not too much, because they can read the same polls: Most Americans think the war was a mistake, but now that we're over there, we don't want to lose.

As for Bush's domestic initiatives, all of them will face tough sledding. Because, although the Democrats are more than a little cowed on national security issues, including "terror surveillance," they are warming for fights over health care, tax cuts and energy independence. Bush's "addicted to oil" line was the most memorable of the speech, and it will be seized upon in the years ahead by foes as much as by friends.

Meanwhile, signaling no renaissance of bipartisanship, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada dismissed the president's new proposals as "Orwellian doublespeak."

Another part of the speech deserves more attention than it will likely get. W's invocation of the "hopeful society," in which Americans take stock of "who we are and how we treat one another," was a reminder that for many Americans government is secondary and personal values are primary. As Bush said, violent crime, welfare dependency, drug use, teen pregnancy and abortion have all fallen in recent years. And these hopeful indicators are indeed "evidence of a quiet transformation--a revolution of conscience in which a rising generation is finding that a life of personal responsibility is a life of fulfillment."

Bush generously allowed that both parties could claim credit for these cultural gains, but in truth the gains are mostly attributable to the conservatizing trend in America--the real reason why Bush's Supreme Court nominees have both proved so popular. Unfortunately, his hopeful words won't get much traction in the political culture because a) the liberal media don't agree with them, b) most reporters are fixated on government programs as the true measure of things and c) the television culture thrives on partisan brawling. So ordinary Americans must be satisfied with the heartening but unheralded reality that our natural good sense and desire for order are reasserting themselves, finally, after what the social scientist Francis Fukuyama has called "the great disruption" of the '60s.

Yet, the big news for 2006 and for the rest of Bush's presidency will be what happens with Iran. For all of W's bold talk about transforming that country, he clearly has been slowed down by the frustrations of his effort to transform Iraq; there was no repeat of the "axis of evil" rhetoric that signaled his war intentions in the State of the Union address four years ago.

So if the Iranians show interest in a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff--a big if--Bush, for his part, seems eager to turn this problem over to the Russians and their pseudo-solution of refining Iran's uranium on Russian soil. Of course, the war drums will continue, in Washington and Tehran. And, if war does come in Bush's remaining years, then this speech will be remembered as merely a breather between crusades.