Posted on 01/20/2005 9:21:56 AM PST by Diddle E. Squat
Who could disagree with the stirring, elegant and somewhat sweeping address the president just gave? Well: here's a rough shot. The speech was a deep rebuke to conservative foreign policy realists. Its fundamental point, it seems to me, is that security is only possible through the expansion of liberty abroad. In the long run, that's indisputable. In the short run, there are sometimes trade-offs to be made. What Bush was saying was that he will not trade liberty for security. Translation: he will stick to the democratization of Iraq. That was the main point of the address on the major policy issue in front of us. In that sense, it was an old-style liberal speech, about as far from the conservative tradition in foreign policy as can be imagined. And at its most ambitious, it was a fusion of liberal internationalism with realism - saying that the latter cannot be secured without the former. It was ecumenical; and it was rightly thematic. If I could offer one criticism, I'd say it could have been shorter. There were times when the liberty theme became repetitive. And, of course, the relationship of rhetoric to reality is, as always with Bush, problematic. How do you reconcile the expansion of freedom with Bush's expansion of government? How do you square domestic freedom with the curtailment of civil liberties in a war on terror? How do you proclaim that America is a force for freeing dissidents, when the government now has unprecedented powers to detain anyone suspected of terror across the globe and subject them to coercive interrogation techniques that the government will not disclose? Perhaps these questions do not need to be answered in an inaugural address. But they linger in the air, even as Bush's eloquence and idealism lifts you up and gives you hope.
I love Condi, but wonder just what change she will effect within the bureaucracy. It is a shame that ALL employees of the State Department couldn't be fired. Fresh blood is needed. The State Dept underlings have been against Liberty and Bush for years. To think our tax dollars pay these people.
Thank you.
Well, the "gun grabber" is really having an effect, eh? Note how in the last decade we have had something like a dozen states enact concealed carry laws; and I'd say just as a civilian that it's probably easier to own a gun today than at any time in the last 20 years. AG does not concern me.
As long as your typewriter doesn't automatically type "Amerika," fine and dandy.
No, I did not miss any of the President's speech.
Having heard that he was on his fourteenth draft of the speech, I suppose my expectations were overly high.
It was a standard boilerplate speech, and the one reference struck me as discordant, even for a boilerplate speech, since terrorism is his greatest challenge and, by unavoidable implication, islam.
Unlike his father, he definately has the "Vision thing"!
This will all end when some lawyer figures out a way to sue tort lawyers for damages of their lawsuits.
It probably won't come as a surprise that even "conservative" lawyers say "it can't be done," but, when pressed, quickly run out of reasons why---it boils down to the fact that many, if not most, lawyers will be out of work when this finally happens.
And someone will figure this out.
Andrew Sullivan=WHINE.
I was referring to Gonzales, not Ashcroft.
The speech reads as if Peggy Noonan had a hand in it.
As was I.
Not likely. The "k" is nowhere near the "c" on my keyboard. You got a custom one?
It is anything but 'boilerplate.'
Remove the knee-jerk reaction to the word 'Koran,' think about what this President has done to protect America from Islamofascists, remove brutal dictatorships and regimes, and free millions of people from tyranny, and read it again.
I agree. The Speech was Wonderful and so was the Closing Prayer, in the name of Jesus!
Wonderful!
RamS
By way of contrast, I could recommend several other inspired, original and truly historic inaugural speeches...
What are we discussing here? A speech or our president's accomplishments? I have no problem separating the two. And one can be easily positively discussed without denigrating the other.
But my guess is that this Presidency is, in it's vision of freedom in the Islamic world, causing an earthquake of historic proportions because of its sweeping foreign policy decisions and bold military actions abroad.
It will be our great-grandchildren who will know how important this speech.......and it's giver...... truly was.
Good to hear they'll find hope in them. The words of an American president have a real impact. It's kind of like the way the market watchers parse every line of Greespan's comments on reserve policy. The dissidents listen with the same kind of intensity.
Those who fight for liberty around the world will be waiting for DEEDS NOT WORDS.
Absolutely true, but I think President Bush has already been walking the walk. He's used the language of liberation and freedom when speaking of Afghanistan and Iraq, and he's delivered. One thing this president has established about himself is that he means what he says. I'm confident that Bush will do as much as he's able to do given the constraints you mentioned.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.