The Clipboard: The Speech That Wasn't What It Seemed

From an article¹:

But now comes word from the White House that Bush wasn't actually setting out a new agenda at all. He was simply describing what his approach has been all along.

And that has invited additional concerns, among them that revisionism may be pushing aside reality-checking in the Bush White House.

In hindsight, the White House is apparently suggesting, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq weren't so much about bringing Osama bin Laden to justice and destroying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. They were about lighting the flame of freedom.

And in spite of the mixed success in both countries, Bush continues to express unfaltering confidence in his world view.

Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei wrote in Saturday's Washington Post about the recasting by the White House on Friday.

"White House officials said yesterday that President Bush's soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy but instead was meant as a crystallization and clarification of policies he is pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. . . .

"The speech Bush delivered Thursday at the Capitol appeared to set the United States on a new course in foreign policy, a pivot from the focus on terrorism, which has defined Bush's presidency since Sept. 11, 2001, to confronting tyranny as the enemy that threatens global security."

But no, that's not what he meant, apparently. (link)

More backing and filling. Why in the world do people still take seriously anything Bush says? I mean, really. He doesn't even mean it, let alone the fact that it bears no relation to reality. Does substance really not matter at all anymore, just as long as somebody says some pretty words?

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Complete text of the article, The Speech That Wasn't What It Seemed, by Dan Froomkin

The initial reaction to President Bush's second inaugural speech, in which he vowed to end tyranny everywhere, was that it sounded awfully ambitious. (See Friday's column.)

But now comes word from the White House that Bush wasn't actually setting out a new agenda at all. He was simply describing what his approach has been all along.

And that has invited additional concerns, among them that revisionism may be pushing aside reality-checking in the Bush White House.

In hindsight, the White House is apparently suggesting, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq weren't so much about bringing Osama bin Laden to justice and destroying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. They were about lighting the flame of freedom.

And in spite of the mixed success in both countries, Bush continues to express unfaltering confidence in his world view.

Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei wrote in Saturday's Washington Post about the recasting by the White House on Friday.

"White House officials said yesterday that President Bush's soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy but instead was meant as a crystallization and clarification of policies he is pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. . . .

"The speech Bush delivered Thursday at the Capitol appeared to set the United States on a new course in foreign policy, a pivot from the focus on terrorism, which has defined Bush's presidency since Sept. 11, 2001, to confronting tyranny as the enemy that threatens global security."

But no, that's not what he meant, apparently.

"Bush advisers said the speech was the rhetorical institutionalization of the Bush doctrine and reflected the president's deepest convictions about the purposes behind his foreign policies. . . .

"'It has its own policy implications, but it is not to say we're not doing this already,' said White House counselor Daniel J. Bartlett."

What caused such a consistent misreading?

"White House officials argued that some observers have read more into the speech than is there. 'The speech was carefully and purposely nuanced,' said presidential speechwriter and policy adviser Michael J. Gerson."

Maybe it's worth reading again, then. Here's the transcript.

"Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave," Bush said. "Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time. So 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."

Still sounds an awful lot like a call to arms, doesn't it?

Fareed Zakaria writes in Newsweek that the speech may call unwanted attention to the gap between the results of Bush's actions and the freedom he spoke of so rapturously.

"The chasm between rhetoric and reality, while inevitable, is striking. The Bush administration has not been particularly vociferous in holding dictators to account -- no more or less, really, than other recent administrations."

And, Zakaria writes: "While Bush has been visionary in his goals, he has not provided much practical wisdom on how to attain them in a complex world. This lack of attention to the long, hard slog of actually promoting democracy might explain why things have gone so poorly in the most important practical application of the Bush Doctrine so far -- Iraq. Convinced that bringing freedom to a country meant simply getting rid of the tyrant, the Bush administration seems to have done virtually no serious postwar planning to keep law and order, let alone to build the institutions of a democratic state."

Ronald Brownstein writes in the Los Angeles Times that "the Iraq invasion has hurt the image in the region not only of the United States, but also of democracy itself. . . .

"The failure to acknowledge this backlash may have been the most important flaw in Bush's speech. Bush declared freedom a universal right; yet apart from a passing reference to allies, he spoke of its spread as an American mission. . . .

"[H]is speech yet again signaled that he sees the spread of democracy as a uniquely American responsibility. He would do better to build a club of democracies that tangibly rewards nations on the path to freedom. America doesn't need to do this job alone. More importantly, it can't."

reference=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32589-2005Jan24.html?nav=rss_politics/administration/whbriefing