PACKET EDITORIAL, Jan. 21
By: Packet Editorial
Not every inaugural address has one defining moment, one memorable phrase, one historic pronouncement that moves directly from a president’s mouth into the pages of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
Not every president is a Lincoln ("With malice toward none, with charity for all"), a Roosevelt ("We have nothing to fear but fear itself") or a Kennedy ("Ask not what your country can do for you …"). And not every presidential inauguration happens to coincide with the height of a Civil War, a World War or a Cold War.
So it shouldn’t be surprising that no single line from President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address appears destined for immortality. At the same time, however, the entirety of the speech focusing as it did on a single, plainly identifiable theme could very easily find its place in history as the clear and unequivocal enunciation of the Bush Doctrine.
The president hinted at it throughout his first term, and especially in his campaign debates against Sen. John Kerry. There are two forces in the world: good and evil. The United States is a force for good; our enemies are a force for evil. And it is the goal of the United States no, make that the divine mission of the United States to spread good, and stamp out evil, in every corner of the world.
In the president’s second inaugural address, he invoked the word "freedom" 27 times, "liberty" 15 times. Freedom, liberty, democracy, human dignity, justice these are the causes and beliefs for which America stands. Oppression, tyranny, slavery, repression, bullies, dictators, outlaw regimes these are the forces that threaten our causes and beliefs.
Implicit in the Bush administration’s preemptive invasion of Iraq was the president’s view that an oppressive, tyrannical dictatorship eight time zones away from our nation’s capital posed a direct, immediate threat to our nation’s security and to the American way of life. Now, through his inaugural address, Mr. Bush has expanded this view of Iraq to a worldview, declaring, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in the world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
And, the president added, "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."
No one would deem this an unworthy goal. But many, we suspect, both at home and abroad, are very wary today of the means Mr. Bush might consider appropriate to achieve this goal. If his objective over the next four years is to expand freedom, ensure the success of liberty and end tyranny in our world by employing the same strategy his administration has used to pursue these objectives in Iraq, we fear he will make the world and the United States a far more dangerous place.
Surprisingly, the president made only passing mention in his speech of domestic issues including the vaunted "ownership society" and the need to address the "crisis" in Social Security, subjects to which he and others in his administration (and in the Congress) have devoted so much recent attention. While we strongly suspect these matters will top the agenda he lays out in his next State of the Union address, Mr. Bush opted to limit his much shorter inaugural address to the broader theme of America’s role in the world.
That he did so with the same directness, single-mindedness of purpose and absolute clarity that he exhibited in his first term characteristics that seem to define his very being, and to which he almost certainly owes his narrow re-election victory is to his considerable credit. That these same characteristics may lead him, his second-term administration and our nation down a path that is far less certain than his own mindset is what we find infinitely more troubling.

