Inaugural Address: Too Much God?

Peggy Noonan didn't much care for Bush's speech:

The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch, asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to colonize Mars.

A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty.

(...)

This world is not heaven.

The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty." "God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul."

It seemed a document produced by a White House on a mission. The United States, the speech said, has put the world on notice: Good governments that are just to their people are our friends, and those that are not are, essentially, not. We know the way: democracy.

Noonan wishes for more nuance now from the president and a well-advised modesty. I agree that this White House sometimes takes its mission too, in Mort Kondrake's estimation, hubristic.

Bush certainly outlined a foreign policy that is hugely ambitious and brash. But is he wrong? Well, if he succeeds he will go into history as a boldly principled and audacious figure. If he fails, he will be remembered as a man of sweeping vision and failing accomplishment.

Comments

[Maggie]

I just watched an interview with Senator Joseph Lieberman with E.D.Hill on the Fox News Channel. The Senator said Bush's inaugural address was worthy of J.F.K. Lieberman, for one, supports the very high ambitions laid out by the President.

In responding to a question regarding Dr. Rice, he said that he wished his colleagues had confirmed her yesterday.

Although a conservative, I see much to admire in this Senator.

[Shar]

whatever happened to separation of Church and Government????

[Maggie]

Shar, read other inaugural addresses....Bush is being attacked for something that has been part of Presidential history. He is NOT establishing a religion!