With little new to say, President's rallying cry gets muted response

A war abroad without end and terror at home that cannot be fully explained.

Those twin dilemmas weighed heavily on President George W. Bush as he made his second major address to the nation since the September 11 terrorist attacks - a speech peppered with reassuring words that testified to the deepening complexities of the tasks at hand.

Across the country ordinary Americans now wince when they open their mail - fearing it may be laced with deadly anthrax spores - and say a silent prayer when they see their children off to school.

'We are a different country than we were on September 10; sadder and less innocent; stronger and more united; and in the face of on-going threats, determined and courageous,' he said, a comment highlighted by the stark fact that his Government has not yet traced the source of the anthrax exposures which have killed four Americans.

Repeated applause could not hide the fact that there were few new lines and, more importantly, no new revelations about the military's chances of victory or about its strategy in Afghanistan.

There was little of the soaring rhetoric or sense of history of his earlier speech to Congress. In fact it was almost as if Mr Bush was battling the law of diminishing returns after weeks of White House sound-bites.

Just one major domestic television network carried the full speech live during prime time. Some news shows seemed to give as much coverage to an address by the First Lady, Laura Bush, in which she urged greater efforts to counsel America's children. Others homed in on a New York promotional advert that showed former secretary of state Henry Kissinger fulfilling a fantasy by dashing around the bases at Yankee Stadium.