President Bush will address Congress tonight in the full glow of Sunday’s elections in Iraq.

For all their faults and difficulties, the election drew large numbers of Iraqis into the earliest stages of democracy. Violence was mercifully less intense than many had predicted. By almost any measure, it was a good day in Iraq.

And it was the steadfast insistence by the president that elections go forward that pushed the process along when the realities of security and opposition could have caused it to stall.

As the president delivers his State of the Union address at 9 p.m., he will surely try to build upon the good news. But the difficult situation in Iraq is not suddenly repaired, and the rhetorical flourish of the president’s inaugural address should be replaced with the specifics of how the country can move forward.

The military is stretched too thin, with too much pressure threatening to bust apart the Reserves and National Guard. Some units still do not have appropriate equipment, including armor. The country needs to hear the president address the shortcomings so far in his war plan and understand the goals that will eventually lead to a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. We’re not talking about timelines. But we would like to hear more than generalized exaltations of democracy.

The president’s controversial domestic agenda, including his plans to privatize Social Security, has split his own party and united Democrats. For too long, he’s talked in generalities about how to “fix” the nation’s most enduring – and successful – social program. His ideas are shaking one of the strongest pillars of the New Deal; it’s time he tells us exactly what he would like to do.

There are high expectations for the president tonight. He has radically changed Washington, exerting his political will expertly to pass tax cuts, rewrite environmental policy and reshape the bureaucracy. As he begins his second term, however, many problems persist. We do not know what will happen in Iraq, if democracy will succeed there. There are glaring holes in homeland security. And the divisions in the country apparent during the elections are being exacerbated by the president’s plans.

President Bush has much work to do, and more that he wants to do. Tonight, he will kick off the last four years of his presidency and his last chance to get them done.