Inaugural: God, ownership, and America's project

Transcript--Clearly addressing the world community as much as his fellow citizens, Bush makes subtle references to America's nation-building past and blatant references to our nation-building future. Echoing JFK*, Bush lays out a huge project for America:

"The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world . . . 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."

Uh oh, I didn't realize the messiness in Iraq was part of a vision of this magnitude. I thought we were just there protecting our interests. No problem, Bush has this covered quite neatly: "America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one."

The speech also includes a more philosophical discussion of the ownership society theme than we've heard so far ("making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny"; "Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self"). The echoes of FDR** are quite explicit. Expect variations on this theme to be the centerpiece of this year's State of the Union Drinking Game.

Also, as expected, lots of God talk. In a future post I'll compare Bush's religious references to those of previous presidents. I hypothesize that their number and specificity will outpace most.

Finally, please note this masterfully oblique reference to the abortion question: "Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth." This is enough to resonate with staunch abortion opponents but not enough even to get a mention in the post-game analysis (at least not that which I saw).

Notes
*Bush, 2005: "From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?"
JFK, 1961: "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger . . . Will you join in that historic effort?" JFK was definitely our dreamiest president, by the way. *swooning*

**Bush, 2005: "We will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear"
FDR, 1941: "The third is freedom from want. . . The fourth is freedom from fear"
Bush also makes explicit reference to the FDR-backed Social Security Act of 1935. What a hypocrite.