When President George Bush prepared for his final State of the Union address, his speech writers definitely had their hands full, with recession fears, and growing impatience over the Iraqi war looming on American's minds. He put on a good face, and did his best to assure Americans that all was OK, but did the American people buy it?

Bush's second term as America's 43rd president has been a rocky road. The President has dealt with low approval ratings, resulting from growing disapproval over the war in Iraq, and most recently the mortgage crisis and slowing economy. Earlier this week, he tried to reassure the country that things were in good shape, and that the country had good things to look forward to in 2008.

The main thing on the minds of most Americans right now is a possible recession getting ready to hit the country. While the President admitted that "growth is slowing," he pointed out that the benefits from a recently agreed upon stimulus package would go a long way to fight off any looming recession.

The package cleared its first hurdle recently with the House of Representatives passing a $146 billion recovery package. Now it moves on to the Senate where its future is a bit more uncertain.

And then there was (is) his Achilles heel... the war in Iraq. It doesn't seem that long ago that we were seeing images of Bush landing on an aircraft carrier and declaring "Mission Accomplished." Unfortunately, time does fly, and here we are, almost 5 whole years later, and guess what... we are still there, still fighting, and troops are still dying.

But, Bush is always the optimist, and pointed out that over the past year a surge by American and Iraqi forces has been working, and has made greater progress than anyone could have hoped to see. He admitted that we still have a lot of ground to cover in the country, but claimed to have Al Qaeda on the run. Call me a skeptic, and I hope I am wrong, but the news I see on a daily basis does not exactly show a situation where we have anyone on the run in Iraq, and that includes Al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgents that are determined to get us out of their country.

For 2008, Bush states that the goal in Iraq is to hold on the gains that we made in 2007, and look to begin moving into the next phase of the operations strategy... "a protective overwatch mission." I'm just glad to hear that we have a strategy.

As Bush goes into his final year as America's president, he seems to be more interested in repairing his legacy than his usual, in your face, tough talk. His speech didn't really come off as overly confrontational and there were no "you are with us, or against us," statements. He actually looked as though he was trying to build confidence in the nation, which is comforting after the past few years of hearing him talking about the dangers and terrors that Americans need to be aware of around them.

The question is, how will Americans read what they are seeing and hearing from the President now? Is there still time to repair his legacy, or have American citizens started to look past President Bush already, and are already focusing on the next man, or woman, that will be addressing the nation this time next year?

What are you thoughts on the speech? Did Bush convince you that things were moving in the right direction with the economy? What about the situation in Iraq? Do you think that there is anything Bush can do to leave his term as President on a high note, or his legacy already set in stone by this point?

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.