Bush speech - PEGGY NOONAN
While mainstream commentary was positive about the speeCh,
The inauguration: the speech: policy and analysis:
If there has ever been a speech that produced so much unanimity of analysis, we ain't seen it.
Almost without exception, the entire punditocracy thinks:
1. The speech was well written and solidly delivered.
2. The goal of freedom around the world is worthy but tough to achieve.
3. Many of America's current bilateral relationships are not consistent with the expanded Bush Doctrine.
4. History will judge deeds more than words.
5. Mrs. Bush is, uhm, smokin!!!! (That has nothing to do with the speech, but everyone is talking about it . . . )
"His tone was proud, unapologetic, even defiant, and his emphasis on foreign policy muffled his outline of the domestic agenda that he and his aides have said is so important to the success of his second term," the aforementioned Mr. Purdum penned. LINK
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
His closest friends were not. Take These three.
Peggy Noonan
"The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch, asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to colonize Mars. "
And Bob Novak
Pasted from <http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-novak21.html>
The answer is given by one Bush adviser by pointing to that second Lincoln inaugural. With the end of the Civil War in sight, Lincoln did not deal with the details of either military victory or Southern Reconstruction. Instead, he offered broad concepts of binding up the nation's wounds. As a result, that Lincoln speech is a rare inaugural address that has become a historical document.
3 major defects
Bush tried the same thing, with a denunciation of the countries aligned against the United States in the war on terror. He expanded the protection of U.S. citizens to "all the inhabitants" of the world, promising: "We are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."
But the very nature of Bush's address contains three major defects concerning his second term.
*First, Bush is proposing a major domestic reform for his second term that he gave no boost whatever in his speech Thursday.
*Second, Bush's inflexible call for promoting democracy everywhere prompts questions about what Bush will do to undemocratic regimes with whom he now maintains various levels of friendly bilateral relations -- led off by China, Pakistan and Egypt.
*Third, what about Iraq? Does the United States guaranteeing democracy there promise a long U.S. military commitment? This is perhaps the major of all issues for Americans.
Reality of divided nation
It will take years to determine whether Bush's oratory Thursday can achieve historical status. But the president unmistakably sent the message that the spread of democracy takes precedence over any shopping list of domestic wishes. To some orthodox conservatives, Bush's message sounded too much like Woodrow Wilson or neo-conservative diehards.
Bush pleased his conservative base, angered his liberal foes and annoyed the national news media by failing to promise a "kinder, gentler" presidency (his father's phrase) to try to heal the nation's wounds. As Democratic senators were belaboring his Cabinet nominees this week, claims of being a national unifier would have signaled weakness by Bush.
Rather, the inauguration brought home the reality of a divided nation. Loyal Republicans and protesters, both of whom poured into the capital, confronted each other. For Bush to address this problem by promising more civil behavior would have seemed either provocative or weak, depending on his tone.
In the final analysis, it was determined by Bush not to attempt conciliation. The main message carried away from his second inaugural address would be that he is a muscular, global salesman of democracy. It remains to be seen whether the American people think that is in their best interests.
And
"William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute, criticized Mr. Bush's call for a more activist military role in the world as 'dangerous, eloquent nonsense,' rejecting the implication in the president's remarks 'that anyone's lack of liberty threatens us,"" writes Don Lambro in the Washington Times. LINK
Posted by douglass carmichael 10:36:56 AM 
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