1.25.2005
. . . Oh, Never Mind (WashingtonPost.com)
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A15
Perhaps I owe readers an apology. While I was critical of President Bush's inaugural address in some respects, it appears that I took its promise of an expansive campaign on behalf of democracy too seriously.
Barely 24 hours after the last marching band paraded past the White House, the president's lieutenants were out there spinning that all those lovely words didn't mean quite as much as they seemed to have meant.
On the front page of The Post, Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei cited White House officials as saying on Friday that Bush's speech was "carefully written not to tie him to any inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny."
The president's "soaring inaugural address," they wrote, would not lead "to any quick shift in strategy" for dealing with allies such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan, nations "whose records on human rights fall well short of the values Bush said would become the basis of relations with all countries." Oh yes, and the same advisers said they "were not trying to roll back the speech on the day after."
In the New York Times, Steven R. Weisman and David E. Sanger noted dryly that an administration official "used the word 'bold' several times to describe" the speech. Yet the same administration official, they wrote, suggested that the address "did not imply that the United States would impose its views on other countries or overlook their particular social and political problems."
Could it be that the speech was designed to sound great but not commit the president to much of anything? "People want to read a lot into it -- that this means new aggression or newly asserted military forces," former president George H.W. Bush told reporters on Saturday. "That's not what that speech is about. It's about freedom." Well, yes, but it also seemed to be about asserting freedom more aggressively. Is that part now inoperative?
(More ... . . . Oh, Never Mind (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 19:14
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A15
Perhaps I owe readers an apology. While I was critical of President Bush's inaugural address in some respects, it appears that I took its promise of an expansive campaign on behalf of democracy too seriously.
Barely 24 hours after the last marching band paraded past the White House, the president's lieutenants were out there spinning that all those lovely words didn't mean quite as much as they seemed to have meant.
On the front page of The Post, Dan Balz and Jim VandeHei cited White House officials as saying on Friday that Bush's speech was "carefully written not to tie him to any inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny."
The president's "soaring inaugural address," they wrote, would not lead "to any quick shift in strategy" for dealing with allies such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan, nations "whose records on human rights fall well short of the values Bush said would become the basis of relations with all countries." Oh yes, and the same advisers said they "were not trying to roll back the speech on the day after."
In the New York Times, Steven R. Weisman and David E. Sanger noted dryly that an administration official "used the word 'bold' several times to describe" the speech. Yet the same administration official, they wrote, suggested that the address "did not imply that the United States would impose its views on other countries or overlook their particular social and political problems."
Could it be that the speech was designed to sound great but not commit the president to much of anything? "People want to read a lot into it -- that this means new aggression or newly asserted military forces," former president George H.W. Bush told reporters on Saturday. "That's not what that speech is about. It's about freedom." Well, yes, but it also seemed to be about asserting freedom more aggressively. Is that part now inoperative?
(More ... . . . Oh, Never Mind (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 19:14
