Free Republic

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Monday he has "a big agenda in mind" for his second term that begins this week and that four years is going to be a short time to meet all his goals. "We got to get moving and get some things done before -- before people kind of write me off," Bush told CBS News in an interview. He said he hopes that with his final election behind him, Republicans and Democrats in Congress will work together to pass his legislation. Unity will be the most important theme of his inaugural address on Thursday, he...

THE LAVISH American presidential inaugural celebrations that will be witnessed this week were championed by Warren Harding. In 1921, when Congress refused to finance his plans for a grand parade, he ignored it and went to the private sector to raise funds for an extravaganza. He was not, alas, much of an orator or a president. A contemporary politician remarked: “His speeches left the impression of an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea; sometimes these meandering words would actually capture a straggling thought and bear it triumphantly a prisoner in their midst, until...

Washington -- Four more years of President Bush in the White House is a prospect that instills hope in some and fright in others. Yet Bush's influence is likely to extend well beyond January 2009, when his second term officially ends. From reshaping the Supreme Court and American foreign policy to transforming Social Security, the tax code and environmental laws, Bush has an opportunity to put his imprint on policies for generations to come.

Now that President Bush has twice gotten himself to the White House, the question is whether he wants to try for Mount Rushmore. One of the luxuries of a second term is an opportunity to think about the long run, not simply for one's own "legacy," but for the future of the nation as a whole. Even during his first term, George W. Bush's long-run strategic view, exemplified by the war on terrorism, contrasted sharply with former President Bill Clinton's preoccupation with short-run political tactics, though this contrast seemed to be little noticed in most of the media. What are...

President Bush, wrapping the themes of his re-election campaign in his State of the Union address, asserted Tuesday night that America is strengthening its economy and successfully combatting terrorism. ''We have not come all this way -- through tragedy and trial and war -- only to falter and leave our work unfinished,'' he said. In a stay-the-course appeal to a joint session of Congress, Bush said the nation faced important challenges and choices. He said it was tempting -- but wrong -- to think the danger of terrorist attacks had passed even though it has been more than two years...