I remember Bush's speech on 9/11/01 as being rather weak and ill-prepared, but his speech nine days later will go down in history as one of the defining speechs in modern history. Wait until next week, this will give Bush a whole new level of forcefulness.
President Bush did ok. The debate that scared me the most was the first debate in 1984 where President Reagan came out flat. In the next debate he made his comment about not holding his opponent's youth and inexperience against him. After that remark, everyone forgot the first debate.