What Did Americans Think of the President's State of the Union Address?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Report Card

Viewers of the State of the Union address are giving the president generally good marks — according to some instant surveys &# 8212; which we must point out generally favor whoever is president.

A CNN poll of 370 viewers found a total of 78 percent viewed the speech as "positive" or "very positive" — and 20 percent "somewhat" or "very negative."

In a much less scientific survey here at FOX, we asked viewers to text message us their reactions. 84 percent rated the speech as "excellent" — four percent said "good," and 10 percent said "poor."

The president said the U.S. is on the verge of technical breakthroughs that will help confront what he called the "serious challenge of global climate change." That sparked a standing ovation led by New York freshman Democrat John Hall — a former rock singer with the band "Orleans."

Hall told FOX News that the president had previously denied the existence of global warming and that it was the first time he could remember Mr. Bush using the words "global climate change."

It turns out the president has been talking about that as far back at February of 2002 — when he announced his "clear skies and global climate change initiatives" by saying, "we must clear our air, and we must address the issue of global climate change."

Our research could not find any instance where the president denied the existence of global warming.

Blacks Not Welcome?

Jesse Jackson last week visited Boise State University — the small Idaho school fresh off a big upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl football game on New Year's night. Jackson told his audience that black football players were not welcome at the school during the 1950's and 60's —and that upset some people in the community. A few got out the record books to prove him wrong — and they did.

The Idaho Statesman newspaper says the school archivist found what was then Boise Junior College had black athletes as far back as the 1940's — even though there were very few black people in the region then. He says old yearbooks document the presence of black athletes on campus.

A historian at the university called Jackson's remarks "an attempt to stereotype Boise with loose regard for the facts."

No Guns

You may recall last week we ran a report about police officers in Tijuana, Mexico being forced to turn in their guns — because officials were worried they were on the take. The cops were upset that they could no longer defend themselves.

So now the department has issued about 60 slingshots to officers patrolling tourist areas — along with bags of ball bearings.

That didn't seem to impress the officers — about 100 of them demonstrated outside the town hall Monday demanding their guns back.

—FOX News Channel's Martin Hill contributed to this report.