From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Bob Garfield is away this week.

I'm Mike Peska.

On Tuesday, George Bush gave the biggest speech of his presidency not related to terrorism.

Plastered behind him dozens of times were the words, corporate responsibility.

If that's the message that sticks, then Bush will have won the day.

If, on the other hand, citizens hunger for the similar but harsher phrase corporate reform,

the Bush appeal will be overrun by congressional proposals that go far beyond what Bush advocates

to rebuild confidence in the nation's business. Those were the stakes, and here to dissect the message

is David Frum, who coined many a familiar phrase as a White House speechwriter during the first

14 months of the current Bush presidency. David Frum, thanks for coming on. Thank you. So were you

waiting for Bush to call Enron, WorldCom, and Tycoe, the axis of malfeasance?

That might have been a little bit over the top.

You know, this issue in many ways presents him with very unusual political problems.

This is a war president who's now been yanked back out of what he thinks is important

and what probably his political base thinks is important to deal with an issue that he thinks is secondary.

Before the speech, he had a pre-speech press conference where he talked about some of the

issues that he was going to talk about the next day.

What's the purpose of such a pre-speech speech?

Well, you know, if you bring the press into the room, read a half an hour speech at them,

and then ask them to report on it, they're going to get a lot wrong.

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