It's that "democracy" is such an inherently positive word with entirely positive connotations to most Americans.
Democracy is not an inherently positive word. Aristotle knew that democracy could destroy itself once people found they could vote themselves benefits out of the public coffer. Most of what is wrong with America today is due to a surfeit of democracy. Looking further afield, does not the Hamas election in the Palestinian territories point to another flaw in mere democracy?
Uggh, semantical arguments bore me. I'm done with this one.
The United States does not suffer from a surfeit of democracy--- on the contrary, the Supreme Court and federal and bureaucracies have moved further and further away from the bounds of democratic controls.
As Aristotle noted, each of the main forms of government have a corrupt form and a better one and President Bush is clearly talking about the latter, as his context makes clear: in virtually any speech where he has talked about expanding democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere, he has not talked about increasing it nearly as much as he has talked about increasing freedom.
As for the Hamas election, it served a great purpose, that of clarity. After it, the liberal left in Israel and America could hold the people of the Palestinian Authority accountable; the delusion that the majority did not support Hamas i.e. support terrorism was shattered.