Posted on 01/21/2005 4:19:45 AM PST by Mikmur
PEGGY NOONAN
Way Too Much God Was the president's speech a case of "mission inebriation"?
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. A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty.
The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty." "God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul."
And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I like to call them the "reactionary neo-progs."
Some Democrats , like Byrd, are members of a special club, the "reaKKKtionary DemoKKKrats."
So I am to take it from Bush that the IRS and tax attorneys are sent by God as a modern visitation of the trials of Job?
No, I believe the IRS, and the concept of taxing income, is satanic.
www.fairtax.org
"One fears that he is trying to make up for the fact that the most fightening man in America is no longer running Justice."
The speech was to the world, the era of Clintonism, "EQUALIZE ALL NATIONS" using nuclear to gain respect is OVER!
hehe! We had one last night at church! :p
Hey Don, you and I read this speech exactly the same. We are in the zone if you ask me. This was a change in foreign policy not a religious call, a call to war or anything else. And the President should "overreach" in the name of leadership. Would we want a Jimmie Carter in his sweater telling us to cut back our desires for the world. And I think that the point that our safety is dependent on the ending of tyranny to be breathtaking.
Non-empires fall, too.
Consider Daschle and Gephardt who vowed in 2001 to "work with" Bush and the Republicans.
Okay...now there are three of us.
It would only matter to those who know who Natan is, and the subject of his book, "The Case for Democracy".
Peggy Noonan is a devout Catholic; I would hardly call her "uncomfortable with God." She's also a well-known and well-grounded conservative, and a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan. She's not some neocon newbie.
Or like the old saying, "It's like trying to teach a pig to sing: it doesn't work, and it annoys the pig."
I think Peggy just got scared, lost her nerve and the whole war thing just scares people. Or women anyway. They are like cats in a roomful of rockers.
What Peggy may not see is the real core of GWB's allure. And that is his fearlessness, his boldness and his utter authenticity. He says what he thinks, is not afraid and is a leader. The best since Reagan.
"Okay...now there are three of us."
Count me in but I think Bush has been saying this all along but not so eloquently as in this speech.
I found Peggy's comments about "overreaching" to be rather out of place coming from a Reagan supporter. America is all about setting standards that are probably unattainable in this world, but we try nonetheless. America is based on standards we have yet to reach in perfection. Such standards serve as a guide. President Bush has just reestablished a guide for US foreign policy. And I, for one, am glad.
And I think that the point that our safety is dependent on the ending of tyranny to be breathtaking.
The President and Natan are in total agreement on this issue. The President has been reading Natan's book, "The Case for Democracy", which makes this point. He asked to meet Natan without even finishing it, and is apparently passing out copies of the book to everyone.
Change?
Sounded like the same policy to me ... just more and stupider.
It doesn't have anything to do with race - it's all about culture. While slavery was completely odious and morally wrong, African slaves *were* often baptized and became devout Christians. Even in the post-bellum century of dreadful treatment - Reconstruction, persecution and murder by the Klan and other lynch mobs, American apartheid laws, etc., the descendants of former African slaves became Americans and part of "the American dream." This is a testament to the transforming power of *America.*
But if you go to Africa today, there is very little freedom or development. It's not because of the race of the people; some cultures are deliberately and resolutely anti-freedom. You either have to remove the people from the culture, or destroy the culture to free the people.
You see, that is where you and GWB differ. And it reminds me painfully of the thoughts during slave times and after, that blacks were unable to manage themselves, unable to make it without masters.
I don't know if you are right or not. But I have known enough of what you call "these people",,arabs, muslims, to know that they can be civilized, cultured, kind and seem to love democracy.
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