At least for one night, America’s drunk uncle sobered up.

Although no one will ever confuse Donald Trump for Ronald Reagan, he stuck to a teleprompter last night while addressing Congress and sounded almost – dare I say it? – presidential.

For the first time since taking office, Trump reached out to the millions of Americans who didn’t vote for him, talking up education, infrastructure, and the country’s “inner cities.” (And can we please stop talking about “inner cities” now that the “Death Wish” franchise has been retired and juice bars are sprouting in Brooklyn?)

Trump did pull a double-switch on immigration, though, apparently telling news anchors in an off-the-record briefing earlier in the day that he’s looking to find a way to legalize millions of undocumented workers but then not addressing that proposal in his speech.

But overall, it was almost like someone slipped Trump a happy pill for the evening. Maybe you didn’t love his talking points, but our scowler-in-chief was definitely replaced by some strange man who almost resembled a president. It was refreshing and a bit amazing that he didn’t slink off and Tweet something nasty at 5 a.m. this morning about Chuck Todd or Chuck Schumer.

Trump’s good night reminded me a little bit about a Britney Spears’ concert that friends of mine attended in Las Vegas a few years ago. “How was it?” I asked my buddies. “With that glitzy production and that audience, I could have been a star,’’ laughed a friend.

While we will likely never be able to test out his theory either in Las Vegas or in the Capitol, we can at least breathe a sigh of relief that for one brief shining moment, things seemed almost normal.

But it’s also worth pointing out that there was a very long laundry list of fuzzy proposals made by Trump that were vague and need to be spelled out a lot more.

The devil is in the details. But at least for a few hours, he wasn’t on Twitter.

 

Bob Hardt