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Bush's Breakthrough: The president's second inaugural address smashes the wall between the idealists and the realists. (Fred Barnes, 01/20/2005, Weekly Standard)

WHAT WAS SO GREAT about President Bush's inaugural address? First, it was eloquent, noting that freedom lights "a fire in the minds of men" and represents both "the hunger in dark places [and] the longing of the soul." More important, the speech laid out an extraordinarily sweeping and ambitious foreign policy for the nation. In doing so, Bush broke down the barrier between the foreign policy idealists, of which he and President Reagan are the most notable, and the realists, who include his father and his father's two chief advisers on foreign affairs, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker.

The most significant statement in the speech was simple and not lyrical at all: "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." That's quite a declaration, one likely to unnerve tyrants and autocrats and even a few allies around the world. But Bush wasn't kidding or just riffing.

What the president added to his crusade for democracy made the policy all the more important. Bush said the creation of more democracies would have the effect making the United States more secure. Indeed, the need to seed freedom in as many countries as possible "is the urgent requirement of our nation's security and the calling of our time." In the same vein, he said: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other
lands." Though he didn't say so in the speech, the president believes the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the creation of a democratic Iraq will make America safer in the world. Likewise, the fall of dictators in other countries.

Nor did Bush flatly insist he'd smashed the barrier between the idealists--or moralists as they're often dubbed--and the realists. But he had. In fact, British prime minister Tony Blair has told him so. The idealists have as their ultimate goal in the world the spread of democracy. And Bush said he would wage a full-blown campaign for democracy, that now being "the policy." Democracy is a noble goal by itself, but the president said it carries the added value of making America more secure.

Security, of course, is the goal of the realists.

Ideals are wonderful, necessary things and they can move a substantial number of people, but if you want a majority you better be able to appeal to our selfish natures. That's what he seeks to do with this construct.

MORE:
Bush's 'Freedom Speech' (WILLIAM SAFIRE, 1/21/05, NY Times)

On his way out of the first Cabinet meeting after his re-election, President Bush gave his longtime chief speechwriter the theme for the second Inaugural Address: "I want this to be the freedom speech."

In the next month, the writer, Michael Gerson, had a heart attack. With two stents in his arteries, the recovering writer received a call from a president who was careful not to apply any deadline pressure. "I'm not calling to see if the inaugural speech is O.K.," Bush said. "I'm calling to see if the guy writing the inaugural speech is O.K."

Yesterday's strongly thematic address was indeed "the freedom speech." Not only did the words "freedom, free, liberty" appear 49 times, but the president used the world-watched occasion to expound his basic reason for the war and his vision of America's mission in the world.

I rate it among the top 5 of the 20 second-inaugurals in our history. Lincoln's profound sermon "with malice toward none" is incomparable, but Bush's second was better than Jefferson's mean-spirited pouting at "the artillery of the press.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 21, 2005 12:00 AM