[RushCrush]

I love Fred Barnes

[Terabitten]

I'm convinced that the two great pillars of freedom are capitalism and democracy.


Freedom!

[Heldentat]

God bless President Bush! His wisdom and foresight have enabled a miraculous transformation of the world. His inaugural speech confirms his genius and inspiration.

[mlbford2]

I like it that Bush reached out across the isle by bitch slapping Slick and Jimmuh in his address. That was priceless.

[Pusterfuss]

[handy old one]

The only part of freedom the left wants to wrap it's head around is bashing the right and turn us over to less than free humans.

[Cyber Liberty]

Now, he's got four years to pursue the policy into make the spread of freedom and democracy a reality.

?????????????????????

[DTogo]

I wonder what sort of DNC sock puppet material is being scripted for Juan Williams' next appearance with Fred on Brit Hume's "All Star" panel? Should be a gas!

[LibertarianInExile]

I love Fred Barnes, but here he has it wrong.

"Security, of course, is the goal of the realists. They prefer democracies, but they're not adamant about it. If an autocratic country is friendly to the United States and opposes America's enemies, the realists are quite satisfied. Transforming such a country into a democracy would not be part of their foreign policy agenda. Think of Saudi Arabia in this regard, or Pakistan. Bush rejects this thinking."

Bush hasn't done jack about the Saudis or Pakistan. He's every bit a realist, no matter the speech. And no matter the speech, the American people are only going to be so swayed by idealism--there must be a significant degree of self-interest for the U.S. to invade another country.

Iran and Syria will fit that bill quite nicely, however.

[McGavin999]

History is going to remember George W. Bush as one of the most consequential presidents in United States history. Children all over the world will be taught that because of George W. Bush they now live in freedom.

[anniegetyourgun]

"This would be merely an intellectual breakthrough if Bush were, say, a political science professor at Rutgers."

But since it's from Bush, the President, the Left will simply call it arrogance.

[LS]

I will say again: Bush, unlike Bush 41, Clinton, or even Reagan to a great degree, has made LIBERTY the #1 theme of his presidency. Now we can quibble about presc. drugs or what not, but any true conservative has to be thrilled that for the first time since LINCOLN someone is emphasizing human liberty as the central mission of the USA.

BTW, in our "Patriot's History of the United States," we argue that a single speech by Reagan---the "Star Wars" speech---virtually ended the Cold War. The power of words is unbelievable, far more so than the power of regulations or laws. If that's true, then the emphasis on liberty will inevitably change the dialogue in America, and will, IMHO, end the modern Dem Party, which is the party of dependency.

[BibChr]

Good, thoughtful essay. But...

...the world's only superpower....

What's China, then? Chop Suey?

Dan

[WOSG]

"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," he said. Boom! The wall between the two schools is gone, at least in the president's formulation.

---

Absolutely. this is a fundamental and important point. It is a turning away from certain compromises we made in the past.

And it means that the 'realists' cannot cling to 'stability' as the goal, nor can we pretend dictators should have say in the UN. This has far-reaching implications, most of them good.

[.cnI redruM]

That's what baffles people about W, he'll actually mean it when he says his goal is to spread democracy worldwide.

[rwfromkansas]

He only has 4 years. Once done with Iraq, I doubt we can do anything more but perhaps help Iran undergo regime change, hopefully without invasion (except for some secret military operations).

It isn't like President Bush can change the entire Middle East himself.

Whoever is POTUS after the 2008 election will have to continue the trend. And, I don't know if there is really anybody but Bush with the determination to continue such an extremely interventionist policy full-bore. Even among Republicans, that person would be hard to find.

So, while I am hopeful we will see significant change in the next four years, I am also a realist. I think that in order to accomplish the goals we need to accomplish on the domestic front....tax reform, social security reform, and if we can somehow also manage it, tort reform, we can not expect the entire ME to be transformed by President Bush. Iraq will be, and hopefully that will lead to other countries, but he can't do it all. At most, we may also be able to change Iran before 2008, and that is not even a sure thing.

Unless of course he starts a draft and massive military build-up, but I would not support that, so definitely the general public would not either.

Somebody will need to take up the torch after 2008 to continue the progress.

[meema]

I like Fred Barnes too.

[nicmarlo]

Nor did Bush flatly insist he'd smashed the barrier between the idealists--or moralists as they're often dubbed--and the realists. But he had. In fact, British prime minister Tony Blair has told him so. The idealists have as their ultimate goal in the world the spread of democracy. And Bush said he would wage a full-blown campaign for democracy, that now being "the policy."

ya'll seen this? Good read!

[Zack Nguyen]

"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

I applaud the goal, but I worry about that line. It sounds utopian. As a Christian, I know such a thing won't happen until Christ returns. Perhaps I am reading too much into this.

I confess do like the idea of telling some of our "allies" to put up or shut up on human rights.