President Bush's Speech Focuses on Ideals, Not the Details
Courtesy NYT, Jan 21, 2005. Todd S. Purdum
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 - President Bush began his second term without uttering the words "Iraq," "Afghanistan," "Sept. 11" or "terrorism." But those omissions seemed to be precisely the point, allowing him to cast the crises and controversies of his first four years - and the ones he welcomes in the next - as a seamless struggle in defense of the nation's founding creed: freedom.
The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world," Mr. Bush proclaimed, pledging himself to "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" in terms that deliberately echoed both Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy, who summoned the world 44 years ago to ask "what together we can do for the freedom of man."
It is for historians to judge how well Mr. Bush's actions have fit, or may yet fulfill, his words. There remains a wide gulf between his eloquent aspirations and the realities on the ground, from Capitol Hill to the Middle East.
Executing his ideas will not be easy, at home or abroad. His tone was proud, unapologetic, even defiant, and his emphasis on foreign policy muffled his outline of the domestic agenda that he and his aides have said is so important to the success of his second term. Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/21/national/nationalspecial2/21assess.html?th
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