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Analysis: Bush kept address simple and focused on message

Analysis: Bush kept address simple and focused on message

WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday launched his second term with an inaugural address that imposed a single soaring theme -- "the force of human freedom" -- on matters as diverse as the war in Iraq, the plight of foreign dissidents and the partial privatization of Social Security.

Martha Rial, Post-Gazette
Republican Sen. Rick Santorum listens to President Bush's inaugural address yesterday.
Click photo for larger image.

Bush kept it simple -- his critics called it simplistic -- but he also kept it sonorous, even soulful.

There is no single template for an inaugural address. Some presidents have used the occasion to discuss policy in numbing detail, offering no resonance for the ages. William McKinley, at his first inaugural in 1897, promised early action on "the question of international bimetallism," the relative value of silver and gold. Others have strung together a series of general themes, as Jimmy Carter did in 1977. A few, like Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and John F. Kennedy in 1961, offered lilting appeals to American idealism and purpose.

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Yesterday Bush chose the path of idealism and purpose, taking as his theme a central aspect of the American character: the love of liberty. History will judge its success -- by whether it is remembered for having moved his nation, and others, to concerted action.

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion," Bush said in a representative passage. "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

David Domke, a specialist in political communication at the University of Washington. described the inaugural address as "a classic George W. Bush speech that emphasized his two principal themes -- freedom or liberty and God," adding that "he brought them together more coherently and more effectively than ever before."

Domke has criticized Bush for speaking "as if he's a prophet of God," but yesterday pointed admiringly to the following language: "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul...History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty."

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The president's single focus on freedom did have the effect of blurring other realities, however.

He suggested that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq had only one objective: to "support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." But he did not acknowledge that the main reason for invading Iraq was the belief, proved wrong, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that might be turned on the United States.

Promoting freedom, to be sure, has never been the only aim of American foreign policy, even under idealistic, interventionist presidents like Carter or Woodrow Wilson. Power politics, natural resources, ideology and territorial gain have figured into the complex calculations that have led presidents to send Americans into battle.

Bush suggested yesterday, however, that times have changed, that the threat of terrorism from unstable quarters has created a new world, a world in which "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one."

Even some of his own foreign-policy advisers might regard that as a simplistic formulation, as the Bush administration, like others before it, continues to press less for freedom in places like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Russia, where friendly regimes share certain vital goals.

Bush similarly could be charged with oversimplifying the power of "liberty" to clarify policy choices on the domestic front. In moving from the pursuit of freedom abroad to more freedom at home, Bush included in "the unfinished work of American freedom" his proposals to create private accounts in Social Security, to promote an "ownership society," and to achieve greater social and economic equality.

Granted, free-market enthusiasts like Bush believe individual liberty eventually leads to both prosperity and equality. And Bush said as much yesterday: "By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."

But Democrats will surely object that programs like Social Security are grounded in a communitarian, not a libertarian, ethos and that it isn't enough to say, as Bush did yesterday, that "the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak."

It's not just liberals who see a tension between individual liberty and social equality (which sometimes requires the force of government to ensure): It's a commonplace of political theory.

Emphasize individual initiative and an "ownership society" and you run the risk of increasing inequality, because some citizens are better agents of their own destiny than others. Many Americans do not equate "freedom from want" with the freedom to make the most of their acumen as investors in the stock market. Freedom, as Kris Kristofferson once wrote, can be "just another word for nothing left to lose."

Bush did not dwell on such paradoxes yesterday, leaving them to be sorted out in future debates between his administration and the Congress, between this nation and others.

What he did do was attempt to distill his governing philosophy into a coherent whole, to rally support at home and abroad, and to outline for all to see the legacy he hopes to leave.

First Published: January 21, 2005, 5:00 a.m.

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