Inauguration Speech Provokes Conflicting Opinions
By Kevin Mooney, 01.27.05
America's system of liberty at home is best secured through the expansion of freedom abroad President George W. Bush said during an audacious inaugural address, linking America's high ideals and major foreign policy objectives.
The speech delivered last Thursday in the nation's capital is being praised by some as an "eloquent" and "revolutionary" statement on behalf of human liberty. However, other pundits said the address was over the top and unrealistic.
A Universal Human Desire for Freedom
"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," Bush said. "From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth."
The president's comments were driven in large part by his fervent belief in the natural law and in an in-born human desire for freedom. In an article appearing in the Jan. 21 edition of the Washington Post, columnist David Broder discussed the president's philosophical musings. "One essential truth we have learned about Bush: his faith that quest for freedom is a universal truth, rooted in human nature and intended by God."
In calling for an end to tyranny as an ultimate goal, the president set down ambitious markers for U.S. foreign policy. He also invoked the high ideals of America's founding period and pledged to support emerging democratic movements in remote regions of the world.
"Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government," Bush said. "Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time."
Too Much God
Leaders of both parties praised the sentiment behind Bush's inaugural address and expressed a desire to cooperate with the White House on key issues. In a press release issued shortly after the inauguration speech, Sen. Rick Santorum commended Bush for preventing additional attacks in the wake of Sept. 11 and said he would work with the president on counter-terrorism to keep America safe in the future.
Democrats also expressed a willingness to find common ground with the Bush Administration. But, there were also points of contention. A press secretary for Rep. Nancy Pelosi was quick to point out Bush was short on specifics and did not mention Iraq in his speech.
"There were positive ideas in the speech," Jennifer Crider, press secretary to Rep. Pelosi said. "The congresswoman likes the idea of America holding itself up as an example of freedom. But she does not like the idea of using Iraq as an example of saber rattling."
Other commentators suggested that the president set the bar a little too high in terms of what was feasible for policy makers. In a column appearing in the Jan. 21 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan concluded the president's stated objectives were "over the top" and contained too much God. Noonan, a former speech writer for President Reagan, ardently supported Bush's re-election. However, the inauguration in her view was laced with mission inebriation.
As she put it, "Some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government. This world is not heaven. The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly."
Criticism of Bush's overt Christian convictions are not new. But, as Michael Barone pointed out in a Jan. 19 Wall Street Journal column, the president's religious references on inauguration day were not out of proportion with historical precedent. Barone cites speeches from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower among others, which were firmly rooted in a Biblical worldview.
Idealists vs Realists in Foreign Policy
Other pundits said Bush's second inaugural address marked a major milestone in U.S. foreign policy. The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes saw a link between the current president's inaugural objectives and Ronald Reagan's crusade against communism in the 1980s.
"The speech laid out an extraordinarily sweeping and ambitious foreign policy for the nation," Barnes said. "In doing so, Bush broke down the barrier between the foreign policy idealists, of which he and President Reagan are the most notable, and the realists, who include his father and his father's two chief advisers on foreign affairs, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker."
In assessing Bush's inaugural within the larger context of American history, former Clinton advisor Dick Morris said the following during an appearance on Fox News: "it was the greatest inaugural address since John F. Kennedy's and one of the five or sixth greatest of all time. It was beautiful, it was poetic and it articulated a bold new doctrine for American policy. It was a substantive piece."
The day after the inauguration the New York Post editorial page said the following: "President Bush Stood Tall Before America and the World Yesterday And Marked the Beginning of his Second Term with an Affirmation of Liberty That will Resonate for Years to come."
