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When someone can confuse Bill Buckley, that's saying something.
1 posted on 01/21/2005 12:29:44 PM PST by baseball_fan
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To: baseball_fan
Weird.

I bought a book full of all the inaugural and farewell addresses of all the presidents up through the 1900's anyway. It sounded to me like those speeches were well studied by Bush's speechwriter. Noonan and Buckley are reading into it things that are not there.

This is silly: He told the world that “there can be no human rights without human liberty.” But that isn’t true. The acknowledgment of human rights leads to the realization of human liberty

Acknowledging human rights is not the realization of human rights. There can be no human rights without human liberty. The statement is true. Buckley claims to prove its untruth by making a completely different statement. Sure, first comes acknowledgment. But saying and doing are two different things.

I find Buckley's biblical rhetoric comment as offensive as I found Noonan's too much God comment. Again, the Bush comments were way more historical than they were biblical. Heck, he even mentioned the Koran I think (the only part you couldn't match up to previous speeches by previous presidents).

I love conservatives but they are a strange lot. They just can't take winning.

87 posted on 01/21/2005 1:18:25 PM PST by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Legislatures are so outdated. If you want real political victory, take your issue to court.)
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To: baseball_fan
“The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them.” What is a “habit of control”?

Oh for God's sake, Buck, you don't get it either? He's talking about those that oppress the freedoms of their people: speech, religion, redress, et al. Even a dummy like me understands that.

88 posted on 01/21/2005 1:20:03 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat (I'm so glad to no longer be associated with the Party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: baseball_fan

Picky, picky, picky.

Buckley Jr. seems to be feigning ignorance as to what President Bush meant by certain words, such as the one in which GWB says much of the world is living in resentment or tyranny, and that he intends to protect America.

That is clear as a bell to me, Mr. Buckley. Please don't pretend that you are smarter than us all by claiming your own meanings for these phrases.

And please don't let me believe, Mr Buckley, that you are aging ungracefully.


102 posted on 01/21/2005 1:29:26 PM PST by Edit35
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To: baseball_fan

>> When someone can confuse Bill Buckley, that's saying something.

When someone DOESN'T confuse Bill Buckley, that's saying something. LOL! Buckley is a blowhard.


103 posted on 01/21/2005 1:30:14 PM PST by PhilipFreneau (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. -- Psalms 14: 1, 53:1)
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To: baseball_fan

Buckley is, sometimes, too much the devoted pedant.


106 posted on 01/21/2005 1:31:03 PM PST by King Prout (trolls survive through a form of gastroenterotic oroborosity, a brownian "perpepetual movement")
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To: baseball_fan
Funny, more than 60% of Americans, including myself, were not confused at all about what Bush meant.

I have had lunch will Bill Buckley. He's a great intellect, but he can make a simple subject-verb-object sentence into a Disney adventure. He's not one to critique Bush on this.

107 posted on 01/21/2005 1:31:10 PM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: baseball_fan

Amazing!!

Buckley Jr. criticizes the President for starting to think about the Inaugural speech that week after the election, which he claims in unusual.

Somehow I doubt that, Mr. Buckley.

If that is the kind of thing you think needs to be criticized, then you are obviously TRYING to be obstinate to what I felt was a spectacular day, and a fabulous Inaugural speech.


115 posted on 01/21/2005 1:38:32 PM PST by Edit35
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To: baseball_fan

Quoting:

"Reports from across Iran are stating about the massive welcoming of President George W. Bush's inaugural speech and his promise of helping to bring down the last outposts of tyranny.

Millions of Iranians have been reported as having stayed home, on Thursday night which is their usual W.end and outgoing night, in order to see or hear the Presidential speech

Many were seen showing the " V " sign or their raised fists. Talks were focused on steps that need to be taken in order to use the first time ever favorable International condition. "

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1325679/posts

Buckley may not get it, but they do. It reminds me of the reaction behind the Iron Curtain to Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech. The people in the gulag looked up and believed that maybe, somehow, help was on the way.


127 posted on 01/21/2005 1:43:05 PM PST by marron
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To: baseball_fan

Buckley is being a pedant. Most people would understand perfectly well what Bush is saying. Bush wants to convey a major initiative, not dot i's and cross t's.

Let's take his pet complaints one at a time.

>>“whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny.” You can simmer in resentment, but not in tyranny.

Why not? Whole regions are in states of resentment and tyranny. Resentment directed not at the tyrants, but at us, because they live under tyranny and tyranny breeds and misdirects resentment. Maybe he should have used a second preposition, but he saved time and used "in" in two different ways. Big deal. What he meant is obvious.

>>He said that every man and woman on this earth has “matchless value.” What does that mean?

I take this to mean the same thing as the Christian (or Jewish) belief that in the eyes of God every soul is unique and matchless. Sure, it makes no sense if you're thinking in terms of a cash register. But every life is precious, unique, matchless, because God created it for a unique purpose. Moreover, in God's eyes an idiot may have more value than a genius.

>>His most solemn duty as President, he said, was to protect America from “emerging threats.”

Where's the problem? New threats are emerging, different from the ones we are used to. Not Soviet ICBMs, but hijacked airliners. Bush is saying that we are confronting new threats and must change or methods of response. Moreover, we will continue to confront still other, different threats which we may not have imagined, because they haven't yet emerged. Does he have to give a long disquisition on all this? Isn't "emerging threats" pretty clear to most people?

Maybe he should have said, "It's a new ball game, and people will keep trying to change the rules." But I think he put it well, directly, simply, and understandably to all but hair splitters and grammarians.

Incidentally, I'm a great fan of John Milton. He's a great poet and a great master of language. And he does this kind of thing all the time. Look at what he says too closely and his syntax grows uncertain and his meaning unclear. Yet it's clear enough unless you are determined to parse it according to eighth-grade rules.


128 posted on 01/21/2005 1:44:22 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: baseball_fan

Buckley should have been on with Pat Buchanan.

The Paleo-con view of America and the world is a pre-9-11 view, and has little relevance. Thinking in 20th century Cold War mode will do nothing to protect us from the ever growing menace of Islamo-fascism.

I recommend more David Horowitz, less Bill Buckley.


134 posted on 01/21/2005 1:46:10 PM PST by PJBlogger (BEWARE HILLARY AND HER HINO)
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To: baseball_fan
Buckley's comments were more confusing than any part of the President's speech. The mention of a man being tried for murder (bad cases lead to bad law) after shooting someone porking (ahem, excuse me, "cuckolding") his wife (in mid stroke, no less) at the urging of a sick and dying daughter is on the far side of bizarre.

Like JFK's inaugural address (still hailed as one of the finest) Bush's speech focused not on details but on the underlying principles we will stand for in the world in opposition to an enemy that is intent on enslaving humanity. Bush used the word "freedom" more than JFK who, if I recall correctly and approvingly, spoke of "liberty". I'll leave it to people like Buckley to parse the differences between those terms but the underlying message seemed clear to me.

137 posted on 01/21/2005 1:46:50 PM PST by katana
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To: baseball_fan

Buckley may have been smoking the weed!


145 posted on 01/21/2005 1:48:43 PM PST by verity (The Liberal Media is America's Enemy)
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To: baseball_fan

Kind of grating to hear all these conservative pundits nit picking at this speech. I love WFB. I was very bothered by his article. But I was quickly uplifted by Rush Limbaugh's defense of it.


154 posted on 01/21/2005 1:52:49 PM PST by slowhand520
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To: baseball_fan

Buckley is about 80. he's confused a lot these days.


156 posted on 01/21/2005 1:54:02 PM PST by ozzymandus
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To: baseball_fan

All the New York City "Republicans" I have known felt threatened by the implications of ideological conviction. Mr. Buckley and Ms. Noonan are no exceptions to this arrogance of claiming to be above the moral duty the President so clearly described. Regardless of the prominent role they may have once have held, their day has thankfully passed.


163 posted on 01/21/2005 1:55:09 PM PST by Ronaldus Magnus
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To: baseball_fan
His most solemn duty as President, he said, was to protect America from “emerging threats.” Did he mean, guard against emerging threats? He told the world that “there can be no human rights without human liberty.” But that isn’t true. The acknowledgment of human rights leads to the realization of human liberty. “The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them.” What is a “habit of control”?

I love Buckley, I really do, but all this amounts to is that Bush didn't use familiar phrases, he used new phrases. There is a difference between the imprecise expression and the unfamiliar expression, Bill, and these are the latter. What is a "habit of control"? Is it ok if it is a new way of evaluating political systems? And is it ok if the President of the United States coins just such a new rubric of critique in his second Inaugaral? Indeed, if you don't hear such new political heuristics at Inaugeration speeches where would you EXPECT to hear them?

Just because it is not in the State Department's thumbed lexicon doesn't mean it is not allowed to exist.

Buckley and Noonan are being petulant. They want to be consulted when there is an effort to break new rhetorical ground on the Right, and they weren't.

Either that, or the whole world has been so benumbed by 8 years of Clinton saying exactly NOTHING memorable that they now expect it.

187 posted on 01/21/2005 2:12:52 PM PST by Taliesan (The power of the State to do good is the power of the State to do evil.)
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To: baseball_fan

Not really.

The speech wasn't foncusing. If Buckley doesn't know what "matchless value" means, he is a moron.


197 posted on 01/21/2005 2:24:00 PM PST by rwfromkansas ("War is an ugly thing, but...the decayed feeling...which thinks nothing worth war, is worse." -Mill)
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To: baseball_fan

confusing, not foncusing...lol


198 posted on 01/21/2005 2:24:18 PM PST by rwfromkansas ("War is an ugly thing, but...the decayed feeling...which thinks nothing worth war, is worse." -Mill)
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To: baseball_fan

"You can simmer in resentment, but not in tyranny."

That statement alone tells me that the old man has lost it.


203 posted on 01/21/2005 2:30:08 PM PST by zook
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To: baseball_fan

Probably upset that the Prez is against legalizing weed.

Other than that, it's a whole lot of nothing.


209 posted on 01/21/2005 2:38:44 PM PST by eleni121 (Four more years and four more again after that...)
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