My opinion hasn’t really changed; slow start, laundry-list middle, but a very strong finish. I will say that Bush’s speech delivery has improved hugely since the 2000 campaign; he’s beginning to master his own tone of mixing conviction and passion with folksy I’m-a-regular-guy humor.
Ultimately, though, my opinion on judging political speeches is the same as my opinion on judging popular art: there are no objective standards, and it doesn’t really matter what I think. If lots of people like it, it was good, by definition. And by that measure, media reports this morning suggest that Bush scored a win last night.