If you call that speaking: I didn't have a problem with the "meat" of most of his answers. I think he defended his position adequately. However, the man simply cannot speak extemporaneously. It is simply unbelievable to me that his handlers didn't prepare him for the "Are you sorry?/What mistakes did you make?" questions. He literally had about 5 seconds of silence and ended up saying, essentially, "I'm sure I've made mistakes, but I just can't think of any right now." He even told one reporter he wished he had that question in advance.

There were several instances when you could actually see him looking (within his mind) for the talking points. When he did, he'd suddenly speed up and dole out the line. Again, this was about form, not substance - but whenever you see him "live" it's quite disconcerting. In fact, I think most of the lead personnel on W's administration are bad at communicating (Rice and Rummy come to mind).

I don't think the man needs to apologize in the sense that he messed up in any material way. Sure, it's ultimately the government's fault for not stopping the attacks, but to say that he is liable b/c he didn't forsee the hijackings and building-attacks is ludicrous. He also correctly noted that we weren't "on a war footing" - meaning we thought we were impervious to direct attack and that we were used to just reacting to attacks on us indirectly (a la Israel or the embassy bombings). Yes, the Cole should have been the one that woke us up, but to be fair, very few people (aside from Clarke, of course) were demanding that we invade that pile of rocks that is Afghanistan.

Bush is probably a better leader than Clinton was because he doesn't waffle and he has a very clear sense of where he wants to go (if you disagree, that's fine and you can be heard in November), but still, Clinton (like Reagan) always made you feel like he was paying attention to you, and even if his direction wasn't so clear, you could at least understand what he was trying to do. Anyway, D+ on clarity; B+ on direction.