A MASTERPIECE OF ORATORY

...I for o n e - b u t not by any means I alone-was taken aback to see this criticism coming from Peggy Noonan, who has never previously been notable for complaining about expressions of religious faith in the public square...

...T O BE SURE, THE COUNT IS STILL far from in on this grand promise, even where the Middle East alone is concerned...

...he did not add "everywhere" to the "free peoples" it would be his policy to support...

...W ITH THESE CRITICISMS IN MIND, I have just read the speech yet again, and I am more convinced than ever that it will ultimately be acclaimed as a masterpiece of American oratory, worthy of a place beside Lincoln's Second Inaugural-which, incidentally, was also widely derided immediately after being delivered...

...It took nearly 40 years-with many reversals and missteps along the way--to defeat the Communists in World War III, and the chances are that defeating the Islamofascists in World War IV will-with its own reversals and missteps along The spillover effect of bringing our policy in the Middle East into line with "the great liberating tradition of this Nation" has begun to be felt in other regions as well...

...Our way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual freedom, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression...

...I N TRYING TO UNDERSTAND WHY i t h a s been d i f f e r e n t with Bush, we arrive at what is truly new, and genuinely controversial, about the Bush Doctrine, especially in the form it takes in the Second Inaugural...

...The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority...

...But they were able to be midwives...

...Assuming, however, that we can steel ourselves to stay the course until victory is ours, it will be because in our American hearts and in our American bones we know that the President is right when he tells us in his Second Inaugural that our "vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one," and that advancing the ideals that "created our Nation" is now "the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time...

...John F. Kennedy's has four, plus a verse from the prophet Isaiah...

...transformed a concrete interest of the United States in a geographically defined part of the world into a moral principle of worldwide validity, to be applied regardless of the limits of American interest and power...

...Watch how delicately he plays on some of the pronouncements quoted above without ever mentioning the names of t h e i r authors: We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands...

...Everyone everywhere will read into it his own fears and hopes...

...both of these, as we have just seen, are as old as the American Republic itself and both have served as lodestars for Democratic and Republican presidents alike...

...Renewed in our strength-tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom...

...In June 2004, Mr...

...This is a level of literary power that can only be reached by a writer in total command of his material and absolutely faithful to its own inner demands...

...By our efforts we have lit a fire as well--a fire in the minds of men...

...Naturally his political enemies were quick to deride the speech...

...But this time a large contingent of his conservative supporters also joined in the cacophonous chorus of denigration...

...S O MUCH, THEN, FOR THE CHARGES against the speech as a piece of writing: they are no less ridiculous than those the Chicago Times hurled against the "literary construction" of Lincoln's Second Inaugural...

...in Arab societies, it is a revolutionary idea...

...And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God...

...The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world...

...B UT WHAT OF REPUBLICAN PREDECESSORS...

...and will ever continue to struggle...

...And if Bush never goes as far as Roosevelt did, and y ET SURELY THESE CRITICS MUST--Or at any rate should-know that, just as the Nazis and fascists were the main and immediate target in World War II, and just as the Communists were the main and immediate target in World War I I I (the Cold War), so our main and immediate target in what I persist in calling World War IV is the Islamofascist terrorists and the Middle Eastern despotisms by which they are bred, sheltered, financed, and armed...

...It is even possible that we will lack the "patience" that Bush asks of us, and that we will desert the field before the Islamofascists and their terrorist shock troops are defeated by the tide of democratization that this President has unleashed...

...Like Bush, Truman was at first regarded as a mediocre politician with no interest in and no grasp of foreign policy...

...After all, Roosevelt asserted that to all human beings "everywhere in the worlff' no fewer than four freedoms were "essential" (even, remarkably, freedom from fear), but Bush speaks onlyof freedom from political and religious tyranny...

...When you stand for liberty, we will stand with you...

...It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy...

...Another example is the creative adaptation by Bush of Lincoln's summation of the "real issue" of his debates with Stephen Douglas...

...1 To the New York Herald, it was "a little speech of 'glittering generalities' used only to fill in the program," and the Chicago Times "did not conceive it possible that even Mr...

...In my opinion, the analogous charges that have been made against the substance of Bush's Second Inaugural are--and will in time be seen--as equally preposterous...

...For example, on Lincoln's "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master...

...Next we come to Roosevelt's successor, Harry S. Truman...

...2All these citations (as well as the two below from the Chicago ~'mes and the New York World) come from Ronald C. White Jr.'s Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, as quoted by Michael Novak in "Another New Birth of Freedom," which appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of the TennesseeLawReviem NOVEMBE~ 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 29 A MASTERPIECE OF AMERICAN ORATORY image of fire is developed through an organic and inexorable progression: first it "kindles," then it "warms," then it "burns," and finally, in a triumphant crescendo, it blazes so "untamed" that it can light up "the darkest corners of our world...

...One thing I can tell you, Mr...

...Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom...

...Even more surprising was that the same blindness had afflicted several supporters of the Bush Doctrine like David Frum, Peter Robinson, and Peggy Noonan who, as former presidential speechwriters themselves, might also have been expected to recognize literary distinction when it was staring them in the face...

...Some even accuse the President of 3in the wake of the war between Hizballah and Israel in 2006, Ibrahim would undergo a change of heart about Bush, whom he would in effect accuse of failing to nurture the offspring he had helped bring into being...

...But even if, as I believe, Lewis is right, there is still a long and rough road ahead...

...Note how the rhetoric here steadily mounts in intensity while remaining securely within the confines of restraint, and note too how the rhythmic beat reinforces the idea being conveyed...

...Still, in moving from Greece and Turkey to "nearly every nation" in the world, he was sweeping enough to alarm Walter Lippmann, the most admired columnist of the day, who wrote: Avague global policy, which sounds like the tocsin of an ideological crusade, has no limits...

...E VEN SO, GIVEN THE RELENTLESS attacks by Democrats on the Bush Doctrine in general and on this speech in particular, it should be pointed out that the rhetoric of the three Democrats with whom this Republican President associates himself was if anything much more far-reaching in its universalism than his own...

...He was, he went on, "fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey," and in spelling these out he enunciated the main principle of what soon was being called the Truman Doctrine: At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life...

...I was cynical about Iraq...

...Listen, too, to the Egyptian democratic activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who had also originally opposed the invasion of Iraq: Those [in the Middle East] who believe in democracy and civil society are finally actors [because the invasion of Iraqi has unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did...

...This expresses my idea of democracy," Bush composes this variation: 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...

...On the other hand, because they were both led by people who were very good writers themselves and who had also been capable in the past of appreciating good writing even when produced by their political opponents, I was a bit surprised by their (willful...

...and NORMAN PODHORETZ whereas Roosevelt thought he could deliver all four of these freedoms not in "a distant millennium" but "in our own time and generation," Bush recognizes that "The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations...

...The choice is too often not a free one...

...Eventually the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul...

...Similarly, when Truman promised to come to the aid of "free peoples.., resisting attempted subjugation," and when Kennedy spoke of opposing "any foe," everyone recognized that they were talking about the Soviet Union and the Communist regimes and parties controlled by or allied with it...

...34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 NORMAN PODHORETZ therebyhavingbetrayed the very assurances he makes when he addresses himself in the Second Inaugural directly to "the peoples of the world": All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors...

...The fourth is freedom from fear...--anywhere in the world...

...Measured by what standard, then, is there "way too much" in Bush's Second Inaugural...

...How could they not have reverberated to the incantatory beauty of the cadences...

...I mean, you can see it in Georgia...

...If, then, Bush is guilty of excessive universalizing in his Second Inaugural, he has plenty of presidential company, including both the founder of the Republican Party in the 19th century and the greatest Republican president of the 20th...

...Like Truman ("I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way"), Bush insists that "Our goal.., is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way...

...In its diction and pitch, "years of repose, years of sabbatical" is perfect as a lyrical gloss on "relative quiet" and as a prelude to the sudden shock of " - a n d then there came a day of fire...

...I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures...

...Except possibly for Wilson, none of the other presidents discussed below (Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan) wrote his own speeches either...

...he even goes beyond Lincoln and all the way back to the Declaration of Independence...

...Finally--as Republican critics of Bush must or should know-their party had little if anything to say against Reagan when (in complete fidelity to the Truman Doctrine but in clear violation of his own universalist declarations) he adopted a policy of supporting authoritarian regimes that were threatened either directly or indirectly by the much worse totalitarianism of the Soviet Union...

...soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory," but who suddenly woke up to what those U.S...

...Surely, too, Bush's critics must, or should, know that when Roosevelt held out the hope of spreading the four freedoms "everywhere in the world" it was clear to all sides that he was challenging only the Axis powers, and not the equally totalitarian Soviet Union or any of the smaller fascist regimes in other parts of the world...

...The most obvious example is Woodrow Wilson, who promised to "make the world safe for democracy" by sending Americans to fight in World War I. True, the horrors and then the disillusioning aftermath of that war helped to discredit Wilson's slogan...

...How does it fit with the soft policy he has followed toward China, whose government remains politically repressive even though its economy has become relatively free...

...NOVs 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 35...

...It is not the universalism or the democratizing thrust that the President highlights in this speech and for which he has been so obtusely assailed...

...Now Bush: We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right...

...Fire then turns out to be one of the unifying images of the speech...

...Nor did Hans J. Morgenthau, then the leading theorist of realpolitik in the academic world, pay any heed to the gestures of caution in Truman's speech, which he denounced for having no further than Truman, he is much more restrained than Kennedy was...

...It 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 NORMAN PODHORETZ relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio...

...Admittedly Truman was a bit less sweeping than Roosevelt had been before him...

...No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle...

...Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals...

...Certainly there is nothing in his Second Inaugural to match the overkill of Kennedy's "pay any price, bear any burden" passage...

...In this he must have been inspired by Lincoln himself, who, in 32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 maintaining that slavery was wrong, appealed over the head of the Constitution (by which slavery was permitted) to the Declaration of Independence (by which it was logically forbidden): I believe the declaration that "all men are created equal" is the great fundamental principle upon which our free institutions rest...

...Nevertheless, and for all the prudential considerations that have entered into the implementation of the newpolicy, the overriding truth is that, thanks to George W. Bush-and to George W. Bush alone-the Middle East has been "unfrozen" and that, whatever else may or may not happen, and no matter how many cautious hesitations and tactical detours or retreats may be dictated by prudential judgment, one thing is certain: so long as the Bush Doctrine remains in force, there will be no renewal of the old "pact with Arab tyranny...

...Fourteen years later, on January 20,1961, John E Kennedy, like FDR in relation to Wilson, went Truman one better: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty...

...The opinions expressed in this series are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation...

...I was also well aware that a faction existed on the right whose most prominent member was Patrick d. Buchanan and whose view of the Bush Doctrine went beyond uneasiness into an outspoken hostility that could hardly be exceeded even by the sheer hatred pervading the left...

...Listen to the testimony of the Lebanese dissident Walid Jumblatt who, only a few months earlier, had announced that "the killing of U.S...

...Another frequently registered objection is that the speech overreaches-that in promising to end tyranny everywhere in the world it sets forth a goal which is far too ambitious and uses language which is far too universalist...

...In wellestablished democracies, this may sound trite...

...America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies...

...We have this on the authority of the president of Georgia himself...

...Podhoretz Having for my part listened with growing awe to the President as he showed how this goal grows out of the moral and spiritual imperatives of the American past, how it confronts the urgencies of the American present, and how it ensures the security of the American future, and then having confirmed my immediate reaction by repeated readings of the text, I was astonished by what the conservative commentariat had to say about the speech in the days immediately following its delivery...

...blindness to its literary qualities...

...They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time...

...The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world...

...Let me begin with the least credible of these charges-that there is, as the headline of Peggy Noonan's piece in the Wall Street Journal put it, "way too much God" in the speech...

...Here is Reagan, speaking at Westminster Abbey on June 8,1982: We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings...

...What brought all this wrath down on the Second Inaugural was the President's decision to use it as an occasion for reaffirming and rededicating both himself and the nation to the ideas he had embraced in the wake of 9/11 and that have collectively come to be known as the Bush Doctrine...

...After the shipwreck of Communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical-and then there came a day of fire...

...America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof...

...President," he said to Bush on a visit to Washington, "your freedom agenda does, indeed, work...

...and for Noonan, too, its "moments of eloquence" were overwhelmed by"high-class boilerplate" and "over the top" rhetoric that left her"with a bad feeling and reluctant dislike...

...And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it...

...Traces of Truman also appear, as in Bush's declaration that it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture...

...3 Free or relatively free elections have also been held for the first time elsewhere in the Middle East, and about them, the exiled Iranian commentatorAmir Taheri had this to say: Disappointed by the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian election and the strong showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in last year's polls in Egypt, some doubt the wisdom of pushing for elections in the Muslim world...

...in others (as with Syria and Saudi Arabia) there has been temporizing whose wisdom they question...

...For halfa century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders...

...These were the most famous words Kennedy was ever to utter, but in connection with the criticisms of Bush's Second Inaugural as containing too much God and for universalizing the hunger for freedom, it is worth quoting the much less familiar passage t h a t led up to them: I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago...

...nor did anyone think that his willingness to forge an alliance with Stalin meant that he was spouting empty rhetoric or being hypocritical...

...Which-to the fury of the old foreign-policy establishment where the realist perspective still holds sway, and to the dismay of those conservatives who are skeptical about the conservative pedigree of the new policy and/or its viability-is exactly what Bush has done...

...But rather than taking us step by step through its various components, as he had done in a number of previous (and equally misunderestimated) speeches, he now redoubled the provocation by subsuming them all into "the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world...

...In short, the accusations of overreach that have been thrown at Bush's speech simply do not stand up when we look at it in the context of the oratorical American tradition out of which it flows...

...In fact, going so far as even to deny that (as Bush and others, myself included, often claim) it builds on the legacy of Ronald Reagan, they argue that, on the contrary, it veers offonto a radically different path...

...The first is freedom of speech and expressioneverywhere in the world...

...But there are also many unattributed echoes of Lincoln throughout this speech...

...Be that as it may, by my count there are five references to God here (one of them within a quote from Lincoln), as compared with eight, plus several extended citations from the Bible, in Lincoln's own Second Inaugural (which, interestingle was itself attacked by the New York World for "abandoning all pretense of statesmanship" and taking "refuge in piety...

...In our time it means something still...

...It is, rather, this President's repudiation of the longstanding "realist" policy of tolerating tyrants in the Middle East for the sake of stability, and his correlative effort to institute a new policy of"idealism" that conforms to "the great liberating tradition of this Nation...

...soldiers had all along been doing for the world in which he lived: It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq...

...But that did not prevent Franklin D. Roosevelt, the next Democrat to win the presidency, from going even further in preparing the nation for an eventual entry into World War II: We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms...

...Nor did anyone (not even Lippmann and Morgenthau) seriously imagine that they were preparing to dislodge every tyrant and every dictator on the face of the earth or, conversely, that this prudential limitation NOVEMBER 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 33 A MASTERPIECE OF AMERICAN ORATORY exposed the universalism of their language as nothing but rodomontade...

...2 To us today such judgments seem puzzling, and even laughable, and so, I believe, will it some day be the case with the attacks on Bush's Second Inaugural...

...Bush similarly bases what he calls "our deepest beliefs" as Americans on the Declaration, where it is further asserted of "all men" that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...

...But since a midwife is not a nurse or a parent, his new position did not cancel out his original judgment...

...Not that such qualifications proved any more effective than Truman's did as a defense against attack from today's disciples of Lippmann in the media and of Morgenthau in the academy, let alone from the isolationists and the non-interventionists who still exist, as they also did then, on the left as well as the right...

...fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms...

...But when I saw the Iraqi people voting [in January 2005], 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world...

...Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change...

...In the eyes of some, cases like this expose Bush's universalist rhetoric as empty and/or hypocritical...

...Lincoln could produce a paper so slip shod, so loose-jointed, so puerile.., in literary construction...

...It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world...

...Robinson grudgingly conceded that it was "well written" and "in places actually beautiful," but on the whole it made him "mighty nervous...

...Bush: From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth...

...In Bush's Second Inaugural, echoes can be heard of all these speeches, and by drawing in this fashion on t h r e e of his Democratic predecessors, he is subtly suggesting t h a t t h e r e is nothing narrowly partisan about his own Doctrine...

...And what about the virtual alliance he has made with the Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf...

...Otherwise how could they have been deaf to the exquisite rhetorical flourishes that (far from being "over the top") never exceed the bounds of the best literary taste...

...the way--take as long or longer...

...The second sentence evokes Roosevelt, the first plucks the Kennedy string, and the passage about fire I quoted above also harks back t o - a n d greatly improves o n - t h i s one from Kennedy: The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world...

...But the elections in the Palestinian Authority and in Egypt are not the only disappointments that have been suffered by supporters of the Bush Doctrine, and particularly those who are most passionate about its commitment to democratization...

...Take this dazzling passage, which comes right after the introductory formalities, and thus sets the tone for everything that is to follow: At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together...

...Lincoln, indeed, is the only one he quotes directly and by name: The rulers of outlaw regimes know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves...

...O not in the least surprised to find both of these groups expressing dismay over the substance of the speech...

...Thus, the nonviolent democratic Revolution that broke out in Georgia in 2003 and that inspired two others in the former Soviet Union (in Ukraine and then Kyrgyzstan), can be traced directly to the influence of the Bush Doctrine...

...and George Will-had all along been discreetly uneasy about the Bush Doctrine, and particularly the element of it he singled out for special emphasis in this speech...

...The world is very different now...

...How does it square with the praise he has lavished on Vladimir Putin, even though the Russian leader has reversed the progress toward democratization that his country seemed to be making after the fall of Communism...

...Podhoretz was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor...

...It is a daring prediction, but what gives it credibility is that the words Bush has spoken and the things the United States has already achieved under the aegis of his new policy have shaken the entire region to its core...

...And he returns to the Declaration in a beautiful peroration which is also Lincoln-like in the biblical music it makes and its play on a biblical verse: When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said: "It rang as if it meant something...

...It is a development of this kind that lends weight to the universalist claim in the Second Inaugural that "we have lit.., a fire in the minds of men," and that "one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world...

...The holding of elections, however, is a clear admission that the principal basis for legitimacy is the will of the people as freely expressed through ballot boxes...

...The series is supported by a grant~om the John Templeton Foundation...

...This essay is the third in a ten-part series being published in successive issues of The American Spectator under the general title, "The Pursuit of Liberty: Can the ldeals That Made America Great Provide a Model for the World...

...Here, it obviously refers to 9/11, but when the President picks it up again later in another and even more marvelous passage, he uses it to remind us that we have turned this fire back and proudly put it to exactly the opposite purpose for which it was set off against us on that terrible day: Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon...

...Lincoln: It is the eternal struggle between these two principles-right and wrong-throughout the world...

...Yet i never has the judgment of his performance been ~ J so wildly off the mark as in the response to his Second Inaugural Address...

...Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country...

...And here is Bush's version of the same point: Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty-though...

...and in still others (as with Egypt) there has been a failure to counter setbacks as forcefully as they think should be done...

...Whatever may have been true of Lincoln's critics, those who were sour about Bush's Second Inaugural for stylistic reasons must suddenly, and most mysteriously, have developed a tin ear for English prose...

...Like Truman, too (who stressed aid over military action, but who was soon to show, by going into Korea, that he was prepared to use force when nothing else would avail), Bush believes that the goal of ending tyranny _9 ..is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary...

...I have not gone through all the other inaugural addresses in American history, but I would guess that they all contain at least as many invocations of God as Bush's did...

...There are those--and they can be found within both the old foreign-policy establishment and the conservative camp-who deny that the Bush Doctrine is true to the traditions of the Republican Party...

...No doubt it is with this argument in mind that Bush makes very sure to add an unmistakable echo of Reagan to the ghostly choir of the three Democrats he has assembled...

...A V by Norman EOIIGE W. BUSH has been "misunderestimated" s o many times that this sardonic neologism has _9 ! forced its way into the American language and _9 i ~ w i l l forever be associated with his name...

...Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us...

...How could they have failed to hear the rhythmical sureness of the language...

...But as he watched the Soviet Union forcing Communist regimes on more and more countries in East Europe while also using local Communist parties to subvert countries in other parts of the world, Truman (again like Bush after 9/11) amazed everyone by rising to the challenge...

...It all began on March 12,1947, when he appealed to Congress for aid to Greece and Turkey, both of which, he said, were threatened by Soviet-led "movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes...

...Consequently I was 28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR NOVEMBER 2006 George W. Bush's Second Inaugural Address remains wildly misunderestimated, misunderappreciated, and misunderstood...

...and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it...

...The same line of argument also runs afoul of the judgment of Bernard Lewis, the greatest contemporary authority on the region, who tells us that it is "demonstrably absurd in historical terms" In any case, Lewis adds, we have no choice: "Either we bring them freedom, or they destroy us...

...Above even Reagan, however, it is Abraham Linc o l n - t h e greatest Republican of them all, and the ~SOV~ ~#IB...

...Bush introduces some of the same qualifications into his speech as Truman did...

...Of course I knew very well that some eminent conservatives-most notably William F. Buckley Jr...

...But this still leaves us with the question of how we are to understand his universalist language in the context of the present political situation...

...But making itself even more ridiculous, the Chicago Times added that "in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp," Lincoln's speech was also "slip shod, loose-jointed, and puerile...

...As he reminds us in the Second Inaugural, because we have now extended this tradition to Afghanistan and Iraq, "tens of millions have achieved their freedom," and millions more, he predicts, will follow suit...

...Note also how the 1Unlike Bush, Lincoln wrote his own Second Inaugural, but we are long past the era when presidents wrote their own speeches...

...20_9 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 31 A MASTERPIECE OF AMERICAN ORATORY greatest of all American Presidents--whose spirit hovers most brightly over the face of Bush's Second Inaugural...

...FouadAjami, another commentator born and raised in the Middle East and a scholarly authority on its history, concurs in arguing that "while the ballot is not infallible," it has "broken the pact with Arab tyranny...

...y ET TO DEMONSTRATE EVEN MORE definitively that his own Doctrine is rooted deep in American soil, Bush reaches not only beyond his 20thcentury predecessors of both parties and back to Lincoln...

...The third is freedom from want...--everywhere in the world...

...Yet Frum dismissed the speech as "a disappointing work" with "high fat content" that should have been reduced by careful editing...

...Furthermore, the spillover effect of bringing our policy in the Middle East into line with "the great liberating tradition of this Nation" has begun to be felt in other regions as well...

...In some instances (as with Iran) Bush has moved at a slower pace than these fervent democratizers would wish and believe possible...

...The high nobility of this calling, and the incandescent words in which George W. Bush summons us to its service, are what convinces me that his Second Inaugural is one of the greatest speeches ever delivered by an American President...

...This is a more serious criticism, and yet, as with the one about too much God, it is hard to see in what way Bush is any more ambitious and universalist than his major 20th-century predecessors, either in their own Inaugural Addresses or in speeches on other crucially important occasions...

...But this line of argument ' ignores or downplays or simply brushes aside the astonishing progress toward democratization that has already been made both in Afghanistan and Iraq...

...Or perhaps I should say especially where the Middle East is concerned, since there are those who argue that the Muslim world lacks the necessarypolitical, social, and economic preconditions for democratization...

...Norman Podhoretz is the editor-at-large of Commentary and the author of ten books, including, most recently, The Norman Podhoretz Reader (Free Press...