Posted on 01/20/2005 9:33:31 PM PST by RWR8189
Was the president's speech a case of "mission inebriation"?
It was an interesting Inauguration Day. Washington had warmed up, the swift storm of the previous day had passed, the sky was overcast but the air wasn't painful in a wind-chill way, and the capital was full of men in cowboy hats and women in long furs. In fact, the night of the inaugural balls became known this year as The Night of the Long Furs.
Laura Bush's beauty has grown more obvious; she was chic in shades of white, and smiled warmly. The Bush daughters looked exactly as they are, beautiful and young. A well-behaved city was on its best behavior, everyone from cops to doormen to journalists eager to help visitors in any way.
For me there was some unexpected merriness. In my hotel the night before the inauguration, all the guests were evacuated at 1:45 in the morning. There were fire alarms and flashing lights on each floor, and a public address system instructed us to take the stairs, not the elevators. Hundreds of people wound up outside in the slush, eventually gathering inside the lobby, waiting to find out what next.
The staff--kindly, clucking--tried to figure out if the fire existed and, if so, where it was. Hundreds of inaugural revelers wound up observing each other. Over there on the couch was Warren Buffet in bright blue pajamas and a white hotel robe. James Baker was in trench coat and throat scarf. I remembered my keys and eyeglasses but walked out without my shoes. After a while the "all clear" came,
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
No, it doesn't.
Well, I woke up and checked the news, and here is a very disappointing Noonn column. I won't make a lengthy comment now, but I will tell you this: HERS will be the column that all the Rat pundits latch onto tomorrow. I bet she even gets quoted in the New York Times.
None of us is an island complete, entire unto himself. Its a restatement of a passage by the English poet John Donne to effect that if we don't recognize how human life is sacred, that that which we seek within will die.
Howlin, we know your routine. You criticize everybody here who does not wink at you, then when you are asked to give a real answer instead of some lame flame attack, you dodge the question.
Here is your second chance. We all know you will dodge this also, but at least we can say you were given a second chance.
Put a positive spin on this: "Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another."
Go ahead. Tell us we should be thrilled not to be independent (i.e., free; have liberty).
Are you going to dodge left? Or, are you going to dodge right?
For once in your Free Republic.com life, try a frontal assault on a question posed to you.
I keep thinking of the line from Hamlet about how all great enterprises and the pitch and movements of men are carried awry. President Bush is not a man prone to the danger of hubris. We are mortals subject to the Will Of God and our breath and our souls are in His Keeping, Blessed Be His Name.
Peggy Noonan is all wrong on this one I am sorry to say.
Peggy, a Roman Catholic is obviously uncomfortable with
Protestants, especially Evangelicals.
She should have slept on this one, given it some more thought, and then opened her mouth.
We have had more globalism, wealth transfer and less liberty, but for some reason, you do not feel that President Bush's "Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another" implies more of the same.
I believe you have a case of "Inauguration fever". Good conservatives like Peggy Noonan and I were innoculated against that and have avoided catching that.
1. The Presidential Inaugural Committee is appointed by the President and is in charge of all things to do with the ceremony. The Chairman was Trent Lott, who was probably in charge of the music. I liked Orrin Hatch's song, disliked Ashcroft's. I was glad to hear "God of Our Fathers." Peggy knows who chose the songs, so why is this in the column about the President?
2. I dislike the story of the alarm at the hotel; it smacks of name dropping ("I was at the same hotel as Warren Buffett and James Baker") and is irrelevant to the point of the column.
3. Her criticisms of the speech are not so much stylistic, but rather critical of the content. She isn't griping about the phrases; her main criticism is that the President has chosen an impossible goal. Perhaps so, but although removal of all tyranny may be undoable, striving toward that goal will improve the world.
I find it "grating" that someone who writes for a living chooses to disguise as literary criticism her actual complaint about the speech: too much God and a big goal. Her complaint is about President Bush's dream for our nation and the world.
I will have more to say after I have gotten more sleep, but my last and personal opinion is that she has filled a column with one part self-importance, one part envy, and a huge dash of pessimism.
No. I don't have a case of "Inauguration fever" as you put it.
You simply did not interpret that line correctly.
She did not sound this way at all right after the speech..I am stunned by her column..I did later hear her say "grating" and was astonished at her change of mind and tone.. Color me puzzled.
Oh, and one other thing. After all the left-wing talk about President Bush's past drinking, "mission inebiation" was a very odd choice of terms.
Amen, Mr. President.
Noonan's always been a prig.
I went back and read the speech..He did not imply that we were going to war to free the world..He talked about using our considerable influence to stand with those who want liberty..
It was an idealistic speech but not a sword rattler.
The point has been made over and over that we used to enable tyrants as a foreign policy move against an enemy..People here and on the left point that out..It was rampant during the cold war when the USSR and the US vied for spheres of influence..
.We cannot undo all that, it seemed quite necessary at the time, but we can gradually use it to encourage liberty in those countries where we have influence instead of continuing the same uncritical support.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/152ejgml.asp
Bush's Breakthrough
The president's second inaugural address smashes the wall between the idealists and the realists.
Wrong, Peggy. It's ALL about GOD.
Nor can I.
Carolyn
Now I understand the "sniffy" tone of her column....she's merely jealous.
Amusing, no? that she goes over the top in her critique of Bush's speech supposedly going over the top?
I agree with you, MEG; Bush made a thoughtful, determined, historic break with the past in this speech, wherein he makes our security and our idealism one and the same. Now it is not our policy to ignore the cancer of humanity in chains, while we prate on and bleed in wars about "security" alone, because our security is harmed by such, and because it is morally wrong to do so.
All he really did was recognize and highlight THE TRUTH of what goes on in this world, and his determination to deal with it on that truthful basis.
I heard her initial reaction, and she seemed sold that this was America at it's most traditionally optimistic best. She said Europeans say there's nothing we can do about the way of things in the world, while America always says, yes, maybe there is.
Something happened, in between there, perhaps to tick her off.
Whatever it was, no excuses, her piece is bunk. Coming from me, someone who has admired most of her efforts in the past.
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