Local: Whether Bush drew cheers or jeers depended on the crowd.

Byline: Jeff Wright and Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

President Bush apparently gave two State of the Union addresses on Tuesday.

In such places as the Oregon Electric Station restaurant, where about 50 people attended a television viewing coordinated by the Lane County Republicans, the president offered a strong and stirring address that had people standing and applauding with enthusiasm.

There was a different kind of fervor at the Bijou Art Cinemas, meanwhile, where a crowd of 75 booed and hissed at a speech they found to be misguided, ignorant and worse. That gathering, no surprise, was sponsored by the Democratic Party of Lane County and hosted by University of Oregon College Democrats.

The partisan perspectives were no more evident than when the president introduced his two new appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court - new Chief Justice John Roberts and, approved by the Senate just earlier in the day, Justice Samuel Alito.

The Republican crowd responded with their loudest cheers of the night. The Democratic gang threw Nerf balls at a movie screen and booed lustily.

A few protesters tried to disrupt the Republicans' event, striking pots and pans just outside the restaurant meeting room, but were largely ignored. Inside, the gathering included plenty of younger faces, including the three children of Eugene resident Forrest Nabors, who gave Bush's speech an "A."

"I agree with him that tyranny in the world has to be defeated, and I like what he said about Iran," said Nabors.

David Gulliver, a UO law student, said he was grateful that Bush didn't "pander to liberals" - which he defined as giving in to anything Sen. Ted Kennedy might favor.

"It's very encouraging to hear about the successes of the administration that are not reported in the mainstream media," added Gulliver, who writes a political blog in his spare time. "I like that he talked about the strong economy, millions of new jobs and our successes in Iraq."

Kendall Ferguson, 24, applauded Bush for recognizing the need to train more math and science teachers. "That's just so important," said Ferguson, noting that she was one of only 16 biochemistry graduates at Southern Oregon University last year.

David Carr, another UO law school student, said he liked Bush's sense of humor and his reminder that, when it comes to war, "second-guessing is not a strategy."

"I thought that was poignant - that we need to work together and not fight among ourselves," Carr said.

Former Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey, who has given plenty of his own public speeches, said he was impressed with the president's delivery.

"He's not usually a very good speechmaker, but I thought this was one of his best," said Torrey, a Republican candidate for the state Senate. "He was able to stay on message. With very few exceptions, his facial expressions were appropriate to what he was saying."

The critiques were much harsher at the Bijou's "State of Confusion" party. Organizers invited people to come in costume, and provided free popcorn to be tossed in mock-anger at the screen.

The crowd also was given a list of retorts to holler whenever Bush said certain key phrases. The audience screamed every time the president said the words "terror," "terrorist," "terrorism" or "evildoers." They were told to cough or sneeze whenever he mentioned health care, and to shout out "Can you hear me now?" when he defended domestic spying.

"If the president was going to lie and make a joke out of the State of the Union, we were going to make a joke out of it, too," said College Democrats co-Chairman Ben Lenet, who wore cowboy pajama pants and a rubber Bush mask.

"It was interesting to see how contradictory his statements are," said Jenna Facciuto, a UO Spanish and business major who did her share of heckling and popcorn tossing. "He talks about progress when no progress has been made."

Some of the biggest boos came when Bush urged Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act and to make his tax cuts permanent, mentioned his No Child Left Behind education reform, and said the United States was winning the war in Iraq.

The crowd cheered each time the camera focused on New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose image spurred derisive hoots at the Republicans' get-together.

At the Bijou, self-described Bush-basher John Hibbs called Bush's speech "fluff" that made little mention of Hurricane Katrina, the thousands laid off by Ford and General Motors, or the cost of the war in Iraq.

"It was all more of the same," Hibbs said. "He seems like a wind-up doll. It seemed like a memorized speech without any conviction in it."