grimm
01-23-2005, 03:48 PM
BRITS MOCK
Thu Jan 20 2005 23:05:29 ET
Editors of major London newspapers wasted no time mocking President Bush's inauguration address.
Assorted splash headlines will greet readers on Friday morning:
"BUSH: HAVE I GOT NUKES FOR YOU, George Bush pledged all-out global war on terrorists and tyrants," headlines the STAR.
"POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, The band played Hail to the Chief. A 21-gun salute sounded. Then, protected by a bullet-proof shield, President George Bush repeated his message to the enemies of democracy," screams the INDEPENDENT.
The TELEGRAPH slapped: "DEFIANT BUSH DOESN'T MENTION THE WAR, President George W Bush began his second term in unapologetic style yesterday, pledging to maintain his muscular foreign policy and spread freedom "to the darkest corners of the world."
The TIMES rips: "HIS SECOND-TERM MISSION: TO END TYRANNY ON EARTH, Four years ago he was the Accidental President, scion of a ruling family propelled into the highest office more by genetics and duty than by political zeal and ideological mission."
The GUARDIAN: "SMILES FOR THE FAMILY, A FIERY WARNING FOR THE WORLD."
Peggy Noonan, conservative Republican speech writer for Bush 1 and columnist, in a piece entitled "Way Too Much God- Was the president's speech a case of "mission inebriation?" wrote, "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.".....
"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."....
"Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it's earth."....
"And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."
This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not."
Finally, It is amazing watching the Administration backpedal faster than Lance Armstrong can go downhill in the Alps concerning the inaugural address.
Below is from a Washington Post article":
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.
Nor, they say, will it lead to any quick shift in strategy for dealing with countries such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan, allies in the fight against terrorism whose records on human rights and democracy fall well short of the values Bush said would become the basis of relations with all countries.
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. But they said it was carefully written not to tie him to an inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny.
"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. "It is important to crystallize the debate to say this is what it is all about, to say what are our ideals, what are the values we cherish."
"It is not a discontinuity. It is not a right turn," said a senior administration official, who spoke with reporters from newspapers but demanded anonymity because he wanted the focus to remain on the president's words and not his. "I think it is a bit of an acceleration, a raising of the priority, making explicit in a very public way to give impetus to this effort." He added that it was a "message we have been sending" for some time.
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. In the 21-minute speech, Bush mentioned neither Iraq nor terrorism but defined what he called a generations-long struggle to encourage democracy to make America safe from terrorist attack.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Jan21.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27672-2005Jan21.html)
Thu Jan 20 2005 23:05:29 ET
Editors of major London newspapers wasted no time mocking President Bush's inauguration address.
Assorted splash headlines will greet readers on Friday morning:
"BUSH: HAVE I GOT NUKES FOR YOU, George Bush pledged all-out global war on terrorists and tyrants," headlines the STAR.
"POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, The band played Hail to the Chief. A 21-gun salute sounded. Then, protected by a bullet-proof shield, President George Bush repeated his message to the enemies of democracy," screams the INDEPENDENT.
The TELEGRAPH slapped: "DEFIANT BUSH DOESN'T MENTION THE WAR, President George W Bush began his second term in unapologetic style yesterday, pledging to maintain his muscular foreign policy and spread freedom "to the darkest corners of the world."
The TIMES rips: "HIS SECOND-TERM MISSION: TO END TYRANNY ON EARTH, Four years ago he was the Accidental President, scion of a ruling family propelled into the highest office more by genetics and duty than by political zeal and ideological mission."
The GUARDIAN: "SMILES FOR THE FAMILY, A FIERY WARNING FOR THE WORLD."
Peggy Noonan, conservative Republican speech writer for Bush 1 and columnist, in a piece entitled "Way Too Much God- Was the president's speech a case of "mission inebriation?" wrote, "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.".....
"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."....
"Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it's earth."....
"And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."
This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not."
Finally, It is amazing watching the Administration backpedal faster than Lance Armstrong can go downhill in the Alps concerning the inaugural address.
Below is from a Washington Post article":
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.
Nor, they say, will it lead to any quick shift in strategy for dealing with countries such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan, allies in the fight against terrorism whose records on human rights and democracy fall well short of the values Bush said would become the basis of relations with all countries.
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. But they said it was carefully written not to tie him to an inflexible or unrealistic application of his goal of ending tyranny.
"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. "It is important to crystallize the debate to say this is what it is all about, to say what are our ideals, what are the values we cherish."
"It is not a discontinuity. It is not a right turn," said a senior administration official, who spoke with reporters from newspapers but demanded anonymity because he wanted the focus to remain on the president's words and not his. "I think it is a bit of an acceleration, a raising of the priority, making explicit in a very public way to give impetus to this effort." He added that it was a "message we have been sending" for some time.
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. In the 21-minute speech, Bush mentioned neither Iraq nor terrorism but defined what he called a generations-long struggle to encourage democracy to make America safe from terrorist attack.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Jan21.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27672-2005Jan21.html)