Bush's 'Freedom Speech'

NY Times ^ | January 21, 2005 | WILLIAM SAFIRE

[I_dmc]

This guy liked the speech, too.

[Soul Seeker]

I feed off their hair pulling. It re-affirms that what we are doing is right.

I sometimes have disagreements with William Safire, but he analysed this speech and correctly gave it and the man that delivered it his due. Well done.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

It's high time our allies realize their existance depends on the spread of liberty and freedom.

Meaning, their existence depends on us. Unfortunately, they are more engaged in the politics of power than the appropriate use of power.

[windchime]

"(Once a speechwriter ...)"

Thanks for the ping, Howlin!

Writers are compelled to revise to accomodate their own style, as Saffire readily admits.

Noonan's evolution from praise to disdain in a matter of ten hours seems to go beyond a compulsion to edit. Her comments would have drawn little attention but for the contradiction in her opinions. It's certainly what piqued my interest. Maybe that was the plan.

[Sassy_Sissy]

LOL! Rush is talking about how the liberals are so upset that Bush stole one of their words....Freedom. I never ever associtated a liberal with the word freedom.....I associate them with "DEPENDENT".

[woofie]

The critics were already nuts

[Mudboy Slim]

"Bush makes clear that it is human liberty, not peace, that takes precedence, and that it is tyrants who enslave peoples, start wars and provoke revolution. Thus, the spread of freedom is the prerequisite to world peace. It takes guts to take on that peace-freedom priority so starkly. Bush, by retaliatory and pre-emptive decisions in his first term - and by his choice of words and his tall stance in this speech, and despite his unmodulated delivery - now drives his critics batty by exuding a buoyant confidence reminiscent of F.D.R. and Truman.

He promised to use America's influence "confidently in freedom's cause." He jabbed at today's Thomases: "Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt." Bush has seen the enemy and it is not us. Nor is it only a group of nations (the "axis of evil"). Nor is the prime enemy the tactic of terrorism. The president identified the enemy (and did not euphemize it, as Nixon's writers did, as "the adversary") a half-dozen times in this speech. The archenemy of freedom, now as ever, is tyranny."

Well said, Dubyuh...MUD

[OldFriend]

So this is what upset lil Peggy Noonan.

[Wingsofgold]

I liked his speech. I even like the yellin an screamin from the Left. Hehhee.

[luvie]

"Bush makes clear that it is human liberty, not peace, that takes precedence,...

Of course, it is obvious that if you haven't got liberty there can never BE peace!

...and despite his unmodulated delivery

I believe that his soft voice and his strong words have even more effect than if he were being "preachy" and pounding the podium!

[Mudboy Slim]

Yep...he and his speech-writers nailed it.

"...it is tyrants who enslave peoples, start wars and provoke revolution. Thus, the spread of freedom is the prerequisite to world peace."

Spread the word...this is the gameplan in a nutshell!!

FReegards...MUD

[MeekOneGOP]

Excellent!

Dubya's "four more years" begins! Gotta love it. :^D

[luvie]

...this is the gameplan in a nutshell!!

I think our guys in Afganistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and other spots around the world are well into the game, and the score is racking up for freedom and then peace!

[international american]

BTTT

[EternalVigilance]

"Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty, though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt."

Odd indeed...

[Mudboy Slim]

"So this is what upset lil Peggy Noonan."

Yep...Ms. Noonan missed the mark in her last column, didn't she?!

FReegards...MUD

[OldFriend]

Petty Miss Peggy has speechwriter envy.

[FBD]

President Bush gave a good speech. Bringing freedom to the entire world is a lofty goal. However, there is a danger of going from "liberty to force", and John Quincy Adams warned about this in his speech: "Monsters to Destroy"

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'Monsters to Destroy'
John Quincy Adams 1821

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"And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the elder world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and Shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind?

Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

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[Mudboy Slim]

"...speechwriter envy."

LOL...yer probably right. I think she made herself look a little small. I loved the speech when he first spoke the words, but I like it even more as I go back and study the transcript.

Dubyuh's laid out a very aggressive conservative agenda fer the next four years.

FReegards...MUD

[Mudboy Slim]

"[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice."

The wisdom of our Founding Fathers is beyond debate...thanks fer providing that prescient passage, my FRiend.

FReegards...MUD