It will go down as one of the great inaugural speechs because it is entirely focused on a universal ideal and exhorts all to aspire to achieving it. Further it does something that no other speech by an American president has ever done (that I know of) by stating clearly that the American Revolution is humanity's revolution and not just America's and that America is prepared to act on this premise. All through the cold war I was troubled by our backing of any regime no matter how reprehensible if it professed to be anti-Communist. It always seemed to me that the issue was freedom and not just Communism. President Bush has now stated flatly that the world's conflicts are about freedom and that America stands squarely with any people who aspire to be free. If Americans take this seriously and act on it (as President Bush as acted on it in his first term) it has the potential to be huge. Freedom is the key to fighting poverty, disease, ignorance and the suffering imposed by humans upon one another.
Freedom vs Submission
It's going to be a bloody fight.
I am reading Henry Kissinger's Diplomacy for an international relations course right now....rather large book and I can't get to wade through it.
In any event, he focuses a lot on the influence Wilson had with regards to spreading American influence around the world in a mission-driven foreign policy, in contrast to Teddy Roosevelt's more pragmatic diplomacy.
He asserts that Wilson's mission-driven foreign policy is what most modern presidents look to when developing their own policy.
However, to my knowledge, no president, not even Reagan, has so adopted a mission-driven, America needs to get out and spread its beliefs around the world foreign policy than President Bush.
Rather remarkable.
He is night and day with regards to this when comparing his beliefs before 9/11 and after.