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 ...
In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character - on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before - ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
You could call that a paraphrase of Washington and Jefferson speeches. Jefferson said: I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with me that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approbation of all nations."
And Washington said that religion and morality were the pillars of government. That is pretty much what Bush said in the above excerpt. Anyone familar with early presidential speeches -- wouldn't you figure Noonan is -- would recognize the wording and theme. This is an old speech that has been given time and again throughout our history.
Noonan: “The speech did not deal with specifics--9/11, terrorism, particular alliances, Iraq. It was, instead, assertively abstract.” – “Assertively abstract” – Well, that's good.
Bush: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." – Sounds good to me, and needed to be said.
Noonan: “Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing.” – Peggy may be disturbed. Ha.. She’s disturbed because her input may not have been requested .
Noonan: “Again, this is not heaven, it's earth.” – The President never said that it was heaven.
Bush: “we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." – Yes, this might have been said better. Maybe – “we are ready to reach for perhaps the greatest achievements in the history of freedom” would have been better.
Noonan:“One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.” – Peggy has a lot of nerve. I’ve read her books carefully and much of her other writing. She has a lot of nerve. She has often had a gardenful of flowery, high-reaching vanities throughout her writings.
Calm down Peggy. You've been so great in the past, what's happening in that head?
Your remarks in post 94 are nothing short of ludicrous.
If so, then it should be easy to explain why. I hope you will. (Must leave FR for a few hours, but will check back for your reply.)
Btw, are you a personal friend of Noonan's? Or Noonan herself? With your emotional reaction, you seem ... rather close to the subject.
Having called me a swine, you can dispense with the "respectfully." Ah, Andy is faced with a difficult choice here. Finding out that Peggy Noonan agrees with him, should he know change his opinion for hog-callers.
Indeed!
I would add that, in our society, we are saturated with so much senseless violence and casual/non-consequential sex in the print and visual media, that I welcome a presidential message with many unashamed references to the Lord.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Freedom is God's will.
"Ms. Noonan has jumped the shark."
I couldn't haver said it better.
This is a good speech-writer but only a so-so analyst trying to make her bones as a pundit by proving that she isn't ideologically inflexible, yadayadayada....Sorry Peggy, won't work. You just diminished yourself.
King George III said very similar things about American self-determination. Since, I presume, you have never actually been there, I advise keeping your self-evident ignorance under wraps. Funny how a lot of Arabs come to America and are perfectly capable of participating in a democratic society. There are stable democracies south of the Sahara - Botswana for one.
The speech was eerily reminiscent of JFK's notorious "fight any foe, bear any burden" inaugural address; the busybody Wilsonian sentiments voiced in that speech got us into Vietnam--and, indirectly--into our present situation. Some places simply CAN'T be democratized (the Arab World, Sub saharan Africa come to mind); their cultures won't allow it, for all they understand and respect is rule by a strong man, a chieftain. This explains a whole line of bloody autocrats in these parts of the world, from Shaka Zulu to Idi Amin to Robert Mugabe; from the Saudi Royal Family to Nasser and Hafez Assad to Saddam Hussein. Trying to teach democracy to an Arab or an African is like trying to teach a rooster to sing like a canary.
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God created all people the same. Historically people have not had the opportunity to enjoy true freedom, so they took to prosperity in whatever form it came (monarchy, dictatorship, etc). However, since God gave the world the USA and it's constitution, the rest of the world actively covets our freedom. We are in a unique position to export that freedom. We have a responsibility to spread our God given freedom to those who are oppressed. God never gives one something for them to hoard, but for them to pass on and share. We should do the same. Had we been doing that the last 40-50 years instead of building our 'Great Society' perhaps we would not have experienced both the tragedy of 9/11 and the hatred of much of the world. It seems that we have jealously guarded our freedoms to the exclusion of others and that covetousness has fomented a very real hatred.
This reminds me of the scene in Amadeus where Mozart performs his concerto, and the Duke (or whatever) is asked to comment on it.
"Too many notes."
Ms. Noonan, go jump in a lake.
well, since you are so all-knowing, would you please educate us as to what the state of teh union speech is "for."
Peggy; calling to front and center the tyrants of the world is not trying to make perfection. It is however not only "actually possible" but mandated by accountability. My question is who mandates accountability? I will answer that it is He who set the heavens in motion and makes us His voice!
Huh???
Piffle
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