Following President Barack Obama's speech today at West Point, the UK Daily Mail reported "tepid applause and a short standing ovation from less than one-quarter of the audience upon his introduction." In a CNN video clip found at Mediaite, Jim Clancy noted that Obama did not sound like a “commander-in-chief speaking to his troops.” He further observed: “You heard the reception; it was icy."

The video posted at the White House's web site doesn't include the reception Obama received when he was introduced. There's a reason for that. The first 14 seconds of a Reuters video clip (HT Nice Deb) shows, especially for those of us who recall the enthusiastic receptions George W. Bush routinely received, that describing it as "tepid" may be an overstatement: