Kevin Drum quotes Andrew Sullivan on President Bush's appearance during Thursday's speech.

HI-DEF BUSH....Last night Andrew Sullivan wrote that George Bush seemed "almost broken to me...his affect exhausted, his facial expression almost bewildered." Today he offers a second opinion:

I should say that I watched Bush in high-definition, and on regular TV, he didn't look so exhausted.

Clearly we're seeing a technology paradigm shift at work. Just as Richard Nixon "lost" the 1960 debate because, although he sounded fine on radio, he looked bad on TV, so modern politicians are going to have to learn to look good even when they're looming over their audience on 80-inch HD plasma screens. Looking good on a scratchy 32-inch tube doesn't cut it anymore. I predict booming business for a whole new generation of media advisors and skin care consultants.

I think this does raise a good point. We couldn't elect the homely Abe Lincoln today. Today's television would have doomed the reelection bid of FDR in 1944 (and probably 1940). With the coming of HDTV, will we find ourselves looking for even prettier candidates (such as John Edwards -- long on grooming and short on intellect)? Or will we finally consider that every candidate has warts and flaws -- in other words, that they are real human beings -- and go back to seriously considering ideas instead of photo ops and sound bites?

But I will also point out something else. The mouth-frothing Left has constantly told us that they believe the president to be unaffected by his decisions and untroubled by the difficulties and setbacks we have seen over time in Iraq. Sullivan's observations makes it clear that this is not the case, and that the strain is taking its toll on this President. Far from being untouched, George W. Bush is feeling the full weight of the crushing burden that goes with being President of the United States -- just as have many of our presidents who have left office as mere shells of themselves, sucked dry by the responsibilities they had shouldered.

I once read that American presidents, on average, lived four or five years shorter than the life expectancy of men of their generation. And while recent ex-Presidents seem to have gone on forever (one of the perks of the office is access to incredible health care), I think there remains some truth to that observation.

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