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 ...
Seriously, what have you learned from Juan Williams?
It was, and remains, a great Inauguration speech from a transparent and honest President we are fortunate to have in the White House.
Right on! Let's shun her!
I've always enjoyed her writing, even though I find her more than a little condescending toward mere mortals.
Did you go to the Newsmax website? I went there again and this is the exact title. Sorry.
Yep, ole James Baker was fabulous during the recount,,,he is a rock.
This is weird. All this time I thought she was a Christian.
I will agree with the honest president we are fortunate to have part. The speech was, sadly, deficient.
I'm one of the (foolish?) few who has chosen to make my background pretty much an open book on my home page.
I notice you took off on me rather than attempt to defend your own foolishness.
A familiar ploy on these threads.
Hee Hee Hee
Noonan is morphing into Maureen Dowd as we "speak"......
Thanks. I read it.
Still can't figure out why you insist on making so many blanket assumptions about everyone..
I often disagree with Noonan, but she certainly deserves respect, having worked for our last great president and having written the best book on that presidency, "What I Saw At The Revolution."
She also is an adult, and recognizes that the overblown rhetoric served up in Bush's Second Inaugural bears little to no resemblance to any strain of traditional conservatism. Just as an example: Bush said that freedom in America depends on freedom abroad, which implies that we are not safe so long as, say, Mali and Myanmar are not democracies.
I think I am with you. We cannot kill them all but hopefully we can scare them, the thugs, with the possiblity long enough for the tyrants to consider changing. I would rather we didn't have to do it. But 911 changed that,,they are dragging us into it whether we wish it or not.
You disgust me!
It is very unusual to come across "hate America" types on these threads.
American history is not a history of chain saw murderers.
What mind boggling hubris!
Keep going, you're getting closer to the truth.
No, it's just sour grapes by a former speech writer whose reputation as a wordsmith is overblown.
And many of us believe that Dubya will prove to be as good a president a Reagan when history renders its final verdict.
Oh yes, it would be nice those of you who are constantly bashing neoconservatives could work up as much dudgeon against our real enemies.
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