The b-word - bipartisanship - is a staple of President Bush's state of the union addresses, a mantra to appeal to a public sick and tired of political bickering. And, once invoked, it has been consigned each time to the back drawer.
Mr Bush has never really understood that realising the concept involves some degree of search for common ground. On Tuesday evening, once again, the US president dusted it down. This time, however, it had the ring of desperation - "bipartisanship" please, he was pleading to the new Democratic majority in Congress.
Mr Bush's speech, an insipid cocktail of minor domestic reforms laced with an appeal to give his new war plans a chance, had the feel of a president who, while not yet a lame duck, sees the focus of politics moving already away from him to the primaries and the succession race. With nearly two years to go!
Mr Bush has received some plaudits for his acknowledgment that the US has to address its oil addiction, although it has to be said it is the seventh time he has mentioned energy independence in his state of the union message. But, in admitting that climate change is a "serious challenge", there is at last perhaps a welcome hint at an end to the administration's wilful denial of the established scientific fact of, and causation of, global warming.
His pledge to reduce US petrol consumption by 20 per cent in 10 years is, however, nowhere near as dramatic as it sounds: officials said that the goal is 20 per cent below projected annual petrol usage, not off today's levels. The result, if achieved, will only be a small cut in current emissions rather than the 30-40 per cent cut scientists say the US needs.
And Mr Bush has refused again to support mandatory caps on emissions, instead backing new technologies to cut the amount of petrol used in the US. He is nowhere near Kyoto Protocol ground yet.
The one issue which Mr Bush mentioned where he may have some prospect of results through bipartisanship is the one area where he is most at odds with his own party - breaking the deadlock on immigration reform. Although the issue is also difficult for some Democrats, and they might be wary of giving the president something he could claim as his own, the party has agreed to revive its Senate bill. Crucially for many immigrants it would provide a welcome path to citizenship, but they would be well advised not to hold their breath at the prospect yet.
The Democrats' response to the speech was trenchant and will have struck home tellingly. It was left to the newly elected senator from Virginia, Jim Webb, a Vietnam veteran and once a Republican secretary for the navy. He spoke eloquently as a soldier of the soldier's traditional loyalty to national leaders: "We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it."