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 ...
If you mean military power, you are right. And, thankfully, President Bush suggested no such thing. Surely it is a conservative idea to encourage, by non-military means, dictators and tyrants to give way to democratic forms of government. You know, that old "we hold these truths to be self-evident" bit.
Please cut and paste from the Presidents speech where he said he was going to use force....I get influence.
But the President's speech wasn't about religion, it was about faith in God.
No it wasn't!
"""now on the Inaugruation thread, some guy is taking one sentence out of the speech out of context and saying the President wants communism or something...."""
I wonder if you're talking about *my* comment on that thread.
Just as a FWIW, someone challenged me on it and I explained myself here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1324749/posts?page=219#219
I just caught the beginning of this thread (was it yesterday already?) Computer's going out, got the box to send it back in.
I REALLY like that statement: (Is the source noted? I'll check back up the thread to find out.)
"Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self."
"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites--in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;--in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;--in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
-- Edmund Burke
Wonderful reminder. Very fitting here. Thanks.
You obviously haven't read enough Peggy Noonan or you wouldn't call her an elitist. Get serious. She's also a Christian. If you'd read her works, you'd know that, too.
I think she's wrong, here. I think the two prior columns were wrong, too. I don't like what she wrote about the speech - the comments in this article are far different from her comments yesterday, live. But she's no elitist.
thanks, I replied to this thread, above.
And she's right about the music.
My, that was much more "nuanced" than what I was thinking (grin).
Ditto
I added both of those quotes to my FReeper page. Thanks for the Burke addition, lj.
"Perhaps she is just not comfortable with God herself."
Peggy Noonan not comfortable with God? She's an extremely religious person herself, a very devout Catholic, and she has often expressed her religious convictions in her writings, so that is NOT the explanation.
I have a different take: She's probably miffed because she didn't get to write or at least contribute to the speech!!!
Noonan left her column for several months last year to devote that time to the Bush campaign. When she took that leave of absence, she also lost that income. She's no traitor to conservatives and she's no traitor to George W. Bush.
Some folks on this thread really should identify the target before they fire.
Dear Ms. Noonan,
As an intellectual 'leader' in our community, could you please define for me what 'too much' God is? Would 'too much God' mean that you should only breathe between the hours of 6 am and 12 noon and then He can take some time off so that you don't experience 'too much' God? Or, maybe you should ask Him to not overdo it with 'too much' God the next time you have a near miss in heavy traffic. Hm-m-m-m, sure am interested in when you believe you have 'too much' God in your life. Thanks in advance for the edificaiton.
I wish I had the energy to write down all the names of those who resonded to this thread, but I don't.
The responses on Opinion Journal are FINALLY up, 7 pm eastern time. Most of the responders agree with most of us here. Others, understandably, accuse Noonan of stupidity (or worse) for foisting this maniac who now frightens her onto the public. She did take a leave to help elect Bush, and indeed his lack of nuance did not bother her at that time.
She had one person happy and willing to read her again; this gain was off-set by another swearing her off. Many cited what I heard on the radio (and this thread?) today, that she was fine with the speech when she commented on it on TV last night.
Anyway, interesting reading, and a fine kerfuffle!
Now, back to read "Best of the Web Today".
LOL,,what can I say? I am trying to be more nuanced and get less flames,,part of my resolution to be kinder and gentler.
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