Lisa de Moraes calls Wednesday President Bush's "worst SOTU performance ever," in terms of ratings. "In fact, it's the second smallest SOTU audience in the past 12 years or more." She notes that at 8pm, Fox had 26 million viewers for American Idol, but "Bush managed to hang on to a mere 7.6 million -- a lousy 29 percent retention rate."

  · The Chicago Tribune's John Cook calls it the "least-watched address since 2000."

  · "Bush tallied his biggest State of the Union audience -- 62 million viewers -- with the speech he gave in January 2003 as the nation geared up for war in Iraq," Reuters says.