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 ...
Shalom.
Not at all. I am an ancient private school product who majored in history.
And you? What is your background?
All I know about you is that you don't earn a living reading other peoples' minds.
He has stated that making the tax cuts permanent is a priority. Can he not do both?
Shalom.
I thought it was worth posting again. I love that line. It's a very important point.
Let's keep it going, then. And let's add the homosexual agenda ping list to the discussion. LJ?
Shalom.
Mercy no!
Just your average head chopping, limb tearing, woman stoning, hail-fellow-well-met!
No, because as far as I know there is no innate human charasteric to desire Swiss cheese.
I see your point - I just don't agree.
However, I would agree that you can't give freedom to a people and leave in place educational and cultural institutions which glorify servitude.
Shalom.
Noonan sang a different tune on FOX News immediately after the speech, when she had nothing but good words to say about it.
Personally, I have never understood those who think the sun rises and sets on Peggy Noonan.
She really annoys me with that soft, gooey (and supercilious) attitude of hers.
Hey, foreigners have been streaming into our schools for years.
Send over civics books by the boatload, if you want, but if they'll only read them at the the point of a gun, that's where I draw the line.
Alternatives to killing our enemies are thin on the ground. They...Islamofascists...would slaughter us in a NY minute, they've made that quite clear. It's the only reason they get up in the morning. What to do? Sit around and wait for another 9/11? Clearly this is unthinkable, so we act preemptively, either with force, aid, and example. Iraq and Afghanistan are a mix of all three. Iran's been warned. Syria, too. The rest of the usual suspects...Lybia, Pakistan, etc., are at least singing along with the choir.
Poverty, envy, anger, hopelessness, and illiteracy--(brainwashing, too), are behind Islamofascism. They have no voice in their future. What future? They'd rather be dead in the service of Islam since they believe they'll end up in paradise. But if reality meant democracy, or whatever form their country could achieve, they'd have an interest in living in the real world peacefully. Maybe this is pie in the sky, unachievable, but the alternative: killing them all, generations of young Arab males, etc., for the foreseeable future, isn't rational. It was a troubling speech, but the choice is rather stark. Somebody had to come out with it sooner or later. GW did yesterday. And did it make me happy? No. I'd rather pull up the drawbridge, mine the borders, and let the rest of the world stew in its own juice. But they won't leave us alone, and that's the sorry truth.
Wow! That "imperial urge" invasion is gonna require one hell of a lot of highjacked planes. Not to mention the logistics problems of support by their dinghy navies.
"busybody Wilsonian sentiments"
I agree. We don't have the manpower or the money to remake the world. We can't create Utopia or anything like it. Bush should read the Bible--"wars and rumors of wars..." This speech was over the top, totally unrealistic. While we're in dreamland, China is arming to the teeth, Russia is reverting to its autocratic ways, and we're dumping billions down a rathole. More realism, Mr. Bush, please.
"Just your average head chopping, limb tearing, woman stoning, hail-fellow-well-met!"
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Hey..did you know the the New York "patriots" used to throw immigrants on to fence posts and let them hang there like a sunday barbeque? Needless to say..we had the B@lls to get rid of these guys then. If some Islamazoid shows up at my door I might show him what head chopping is all about. We were not short of the so-called "subhuman" in our earlier days you know.
No problem just wanted to make sure the 'record' was straight for any possible conflicts my response might create.
Congratulations!! You've just provided the answer to the diversity problem in Iraq!! Put good policies into place.
You know, as a student of American history, that heterogeneity does not, of itself, lead to Balkanization. You yourself said policy can make a difference.
The outcome, (whether Balkanization takes place or not) depends on how the heterogeneity is handled.
BTW, I've got to think a little more about the competing notions that
I get all my new ideas from Sean Hannity and Fred Barnes. (/sarcasm)
Peggy Noonan, June 5, 2004.
Reagan was a bit over the top, was he not?
Not very interested in real discussions, are you?
"Wow! That "imperial urge" invasion is gonna require one hell of a lot of highjacked planes. Not to mention the logistics problems of support by their dinghy navies."
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They don't need no planes to get into Europe..they just walk right in. In droves.
And I suggest you read more books and watch fewer movies.
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