How much can one speech do? When you’re a president in a hole (approval numbers stubbornly stuck below 40%, a re-election campaign under way) a big speech can help a lot or a little, be a wow or a mess. You know fairly quickly when the speech didn’t work: People start making jokes and the jokes gel. If the speech is splendid you may only know in retrospect because it takes time for history to see where it fit in the scheme of things and what it really did.

On cable Thursday afternoon they were calling Joe Biden’s State of the Union the most important speech of his career, and not only because they were trying to get you to watch. The cumulative effects of 50 years of speaking sort of made Joe Biden the figure he is, but he never really had a make-or-break speech, and maybe this was it.

The headlines in the speech: There’s life in the old boy yet.

And: Boy, he came in hot. It was fiery. He opened by comparing the current moment to 1941 and suggesting his right presidential corollary is Franklin D. Roosevelt and “no ordinary time.” He immediately pivoted to Ukraine and NATO, issuing passionate vows. “We have to stand up to Putin.” “Europe is at risk.” “Freedom and democracy” at home and abroad are at risk. Then quickly on to Jan. 6.

He sure didn’t ease into things. It was pow pow pow.

Then—this again was in the first few minutes—to abortion: “In the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court majority wrote the following, and with all due respect, Justices: ‘Women are not without electoral or political power.’ ” He said “those bragging” about the decision “have no clue about the power of women.” He said they found out in 2022 and 2023, “and we’ll win again in 2024.” That was a perfect play to his base and deeply aggressive toward the justices seated immediately before him, who couldn’t reply. He vowed, with a new Congress, to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.” I’m not sure how that works.

But it was all part of the drama of a dramatic speech.

The great question the past month was about his persona. Would he walk in shakily? When he was done, would we be using words like old, frail, incapable, embarrassing? We won’t. People will say that guy has a lot of fight in him. He was wide awake, seemed to be relishing the moment, did not seem to tire much, and in fact improved as the speech moved along.

He showed energy and focus, blurred some words and thoughts, maintained a brisk pace. He almost never spoke softly. He sometimes yelled. There was a give-’em-hell-Harry vibration, as if he’d been reading up on Truman. The White House meant to quell growing Democratic fears on the president’s age and acuity. They succeeded, at least for a while. Congressional Democrats looked happy to the point of bubbly when it was over.

It can also be said the president often maintained an indignant and hectoring tone that he confuses with certitude and commitment. In the end I don’t know if the speech came across to a viewer at home as strong and focused or, as has been said, “Angry Old Man Yells at Clouds.” That probably depends on where you stand on Joe Biden.

He was ready for back-and-forth from the floor and seemed to summon it. Conservatives and Republicans need to field a better antagonist than Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and heckled from the floor. She makes her party look stupid and her movement vulgar.

Mr. Biden’s expression was mostly plain-spoken and blunt. He tried to rouse emotion but he didn’t do it with fancy, opaque phrasing. He has a tropism toward words and phrases that sound like high-end ad copy. He says, “America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities,” and I hear, “Dodge trucks are Ram tough.” But he didn’t do a lot of that in this speech. He was unfrilly and direct, which added to his power.

The speech was to begin at 9 p.m. At 9:09 members were still milling around the chamber patting each other’s arms and backs. Politicians touch each other more than actors on opening night. The president wasn’t announced until 9:16 and didn’t make it to the podium until 9:25.

All this was rude and self-indulgent on everybody’s part. They milked it. Ladies and gentlemen of Congress, tighten up, keep it crisp. Don’t be slobby like a not-great country.

Before the president’s speech began, when the networks were filling time showing scenes from the floor, every time they cut to Vice President Kamala Harris at the podium she was giving the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, the brush-off. He’d try to chat, she’d say a word, look away, smile at the crowd. She was collected; he looked at a loss. It was his first State of the Union in that chair. She had no mercy for the bumpkin. There was something take-no-prisoners about it. It seemed to me suggestive of the coming campaign.

I close with my impression that the press corps, to use an old term, has been feeling increasingly pressured by the White House. Biden folk always expect the mainstream press to carry their water; whatever they want said of the president and the administration, they poke the press to say and think about and look into. The press in turn is thinking: Why don’t you make your own points in front of cameras and at events, and we’ll report what you did? It is a real weakness—and ultimately self defeating—that Democratic White Houses expect so much from the press, focus on its members so much and cuff them about when they don’t come through.

This White House is in this respect the opposite of Ronald Reagan’s. Reagan never expected a break from the press, ever. They were liberal Democrats; he was delighted and surprised when they achieved simple fairness. He went over their heads to the American people to tell his story. If he wanted to be considered vigorous he had to show vigor. If he wanted to impress with his views and his plan he walked up to a mic. One of the Biden White House’s mistakes on the issue of the president’s health is the now heavily spoofed spin about how energetic and on top of it he is behind the scenes—in the thick of it, at the vital center, the bride at every wedding, as was said of the honestly energetic Teddy Roosevelt. It’s nonsense. If it were true, wouldn’t the White House allow some cameras to capture it just once?

The president did try to show things through his own presence and performance Thursday night, and it worked. They should leave it at that.

I don’t know if Mr. Biden changed his situation, but it sure was interesting. We just heard his half of the 2024 presidential campaign. His stump speeches will derive from it.