Stay in Iraq

In today's Diamondback, I take on the former VP of the College Democrats in a debate over whether the the war in Iraq is still worth fighting.

I say, yes we should stay! Sample grab below:

A premature U.S. departure from Iraq risks the possibility of a failed state developing in the Middle East. It would be a dire threat to regional stability and a major security risk for the U.S. and its allies. Recall, for example, that when the U.S. abandoned Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War, the ensuing vacuum was filled by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

...Although our endeavor is expensive and requires the sacrifice of a great many courageous Americans (and Iraqis), the potential for a modernized, democratic, pro-Western Muslim state in the Middle East means that this is a necessary fight.

Click here to read the entire column.

I'm no apologist for how the Bush administration's initial approach in Iraq. You may recall that back in August 2005 I said we needed to "change the course" and "put more of our guys on the ground". In December 2006, I said that "significantly more troops should be sent to Iraq temporarily to help with security". Now, with "the surge" underway, I am cautiously optimistic and want to see it produce a successful result for the long term.

Also check out what my opponent in today's print edition had to say. Honestly, I thought his column was pretty weak. The Iraq war is a complex and divisive issue, and there are several compelling arguments as to why we should withdraw. Mr. Hiller offers none of these in his column, instead spouting some hokey pablum about the influence of "corporations".

Even though I believe we should stay in Iraq, I respect those who argue against the war on legitimate grounds, including the following:
a) the cost in human lives
b) we don't know when it will end
c) the strain it has put on the Army might make us less flexible to respond to a future threat
d) the money spent on the war could instead go to domestic programs or the war in Afghanistan.

These points are highly effective arguments against continuation of the war, and on which I think there should be vigorous debate.

Bush, Iraq, and the Missing Sacrifice

Sunday's Washington Post featured four academics trying to rate President Bush on the historical scale. Three of the four consigned him, to put it politely, to the rubbish heap--the judgment from the fourth, a former Bush speechwriter, amounted to "there's still time for him to upgrade to mediocre."

I'm not a fan of these "instant history" analyses, because perspectives can change dramatically over time--one article pointed out that Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, was once considered "near great." Today the man who vehemently sought to deny rights to the freed slaves, and later became the first president to be impeached, is rightly considered a failure.

That said, one thing that won't look rosier for Bush over time is his accomplishments on the domestic front--because they are slim. The economy has improved, but especially so soon after the "dot-com" era set the bar for booms, the more sane growth we've seen over the past few years is nothing to write home about. And I doubt that No Child Left Behind and tax cuts will be the subject of many breathless chapters in future textbooks. Perhaps if Bush had been able to achieve meaningful Social Security reform, he would have something to hang his hat on, but that didn't pan out.

This is not to suggest that the lack of significant, lasting domestic accomplishments is in and of itself an impediment to being considered a great president. In Bush's case, in fact, it became clear as early as 9/12 that his legacy would be determined by how he would confront the threat of terrorism and manage America's exercise of hard and soft power.

With respect to the former, Bush can proudly and justifiably say he that he has prevented another attack on the homeland. No, we can't say we're completely safe today, but we're certainly a lot better prepared. And while currently there are still deep divisions about measures like the USA Patriot Act, I think that history will eventually look forgivingly at the reaction of this administration to protect a shocked and wounded nation. Hey, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, and they still built a statue to him in DC!

But let's not kid ourselves. The main prism that Bush is seen through today is the one that will people years from now will look at him through: Iraq. And in this case, there's no point in mincing words. Whether or not you still support the war effort (and I definitely do), two things are abundantly clear:

• Iraq is in a civil war. This is one of the rare times that I, a self-described member of the "grammar police," will say that semantics should be thrown out the window. There shouldn't have to be one side wearing gray, the other side blue, and both sides marching in neat rows for us to realize a mess when we see one. Calling the situation in Iraq anything but a civil war is to deny its gravity.
  
  
• The U.S. is currently losing in Iraq. Robert Gates, the nominee to be the new Secretary of Defense, should be applauded, for admitting this during confirmation hearings today on the Hill. Despite what any right-wing blog may say, we are losing in Iraq--if we were winning, this debate wouldn't be happening. Keep in mind though, that "losing" does not mean all is "lost"--let's figure out a way to win.
  

Administrative decisions, military strategy, and troop deployments are all matters for qualified experts, and I wouldn't have much to say on those issues. But for a long while now I have felt that there was another reason that our Iraq venture was doomed from the start: that the American public was never asked to make sacrifices or adopt a wartime mentality.

In today's Post, the always astute Michael Kinsley picks up on that reason to explain why the American public has lost its will to support the war in Iraq:

At first it seemed a brilliant strategy -- repellent, but brilliant -- to isolate most Americans from the cost of the war in Iraq. It's starting to seem a lot less so. As the deaths and injuries mount, more and more people are touched by the war -- and become understandably resentful of those who are not. Bush, in his speeches, is eloquent about what no one doubts -- the sacrifice -- but banal about what most people have come to doubt: the purpose.

The decision to wage the war on the margins of the public's consciousness might seem to make sense--it's applying a lesson learned from the Vietnam War that minimized exposure means minimized dissatisfaction. But if you go this route, things have to be going well. You can endure a mosquite bite on the back of your leg, but if it keeps getting bigger and more itchy, it will inevitably come to consume your attention.

President Bush didn't prepare the American public for a big, itchy bug bite. And there is where the whole problem arises from. Had he placed the public in a wartime mentality, they would be willing to put up with setbacks. And unlike Vietnam, the time was right to emphasize a struggle. The aftermath of 9/11 was a golden opportunity to make clear to Americans that life as we knew it was going to be different, that sacrifices would have to be made.

Bush instead sought to convey as much as possible that everything was business as usual, and it has become his undoing, because now we demand that everything be quick and painless. The post-9/11 months could have been used to kickstart a nation to transform itself, through heavily publicized programs like an increased gas tax, expansion of community service programs, foreign language requirements in public education, or any number of dozens of other ideas that would have constituted the message that it's a different world today with different expectations.

In other words, it was time for tough love. Instead, President Bush pampered the public, and now he has to live with the results of that squandered opportunity: constituents that are not willing to deal on his terms or his scope in Iraq.

Review: The One Percent Doctrine

This past week I read Ron Suskind's best-selling new book The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. Going in, I wasn't sure what to expect from the author of the first major book criticizing President Bush (2002's The Price of Loyalty, about then-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, which I have not read). Yet the subject matter was compelling enough for me to pick up the book. Now that I have finished reading it, I can say that this book is important enough to be required reading for all Americans who want to understand the nature of the post-9/11 threat this country faces and how we are responding.

The titular "one percent doctrine" is a reference to a quote by Vice President Cheney, in which he opines that catastrophic threats to the U.S. pose such a great danger that our country's response must be to react those threats with a 1% chance of occuring as being a certainty. Hence, it follows, preemption, unilateralism, renditions, etc.

Probably the first question many people have regarding this book: is it a partisan hatchet-job? The answer is no, and I admit being a little surprised myself here. Suskind's reporting of America's struggle to combat al-Qaeda in the pre-Iraq War years should earn him a medal. He provides an unsurpassed amount of detail into all the successes and setbacks of various U.S. counterterrorism operations.

Some parts of the book seem like Hollywood thriller material. My favorite story involved a CIA operation targeting "al-Qaeda's banker", Pacha Wazir. Afer quietly arresting Wazir and his associates, the CIA sent a few of its specially trained agents of Pakistani descent for an amazing undercover mission. Passing themselves off as distant cousins of Wazir, and explaining the latter's absence due to a family illness, the undercover agents took over Wazir's bank and continued to receive customers. This fantastic operation resulted in the capture of dozens of key terrorists.

Yet tempering triumphs like those are maddening passages like the one detailing how the U.S. bungled the apprehension of the eventual architect of the British 7/7/05 bombings due to bureaucratic tanglings. Another troubling story concerns the capture of Abu Zubaydah, originally thought to be a major al-Qaeda leader and whose apprehension was hailed by President Bush. Problem was, Zubaydah was soon found to be just a menial agent, and worse, a certifiable schizophrenic. Suskind writes that despite this, "the United States would torture a mentally disurbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered." Zubaydah would conjure up several plot details about attacks on shopping malls, supermarkets, and banks, leading law enforcement to squander valuable resources. Even so, it must be pointed out that in what is perhaps a victory for advocates of "rough" treatment of detainees, Zubaydah finally told his interregators about Jose Padilla.

If there is any story arc to The One Percent Doctrine, it is that Suskind finds former CIA director George Tenet to be a tragic hero--he describes Tenet as being "the man most responsible, if anyone is, that America has not, again, been attacked" and laments how Tenet became the "fall guy" for the Bush administration over the lack of WMDs in Iraq. Suskind is a huge critic of the Iraq war, and toward the end of the book he takes leave of just-the-facts reporting to slam the White House (and then-National Security adviser Condi Rice especially) for the way they handled the runup to the war.

Considering that this book contains terrific reporting about so many things the American public doesn't know about the war on terrorism, I was a bit disappointed to see Suskind's personal viewpoint start to weigh heavier later in the book. Nonetheless, I stand by what I said before, that the book does not come across as overtly biased. There is definitely enough here for any open-minded reader to see both sides and come to their own conclusions.

My only other complaint about this book, one I made frequently though it is minor, is Suskind's penchant for "florid" writing. I think his terse and gripping account of terrorist plots or key Cabinet meetings would have been better off, from the reader's point of view, without being constantly interrupted by sentences like these "The connected planet creates all manner of loops, where knowledge spurs action, which is captured in image and word and then cycled back--the mythical perpetual motion machine comes to life."

Considering the insignificance of the criticisms I have mentioned, I would strongly recommend this book. Besides getting a front-row seat in the bleachers down at Gitmo Bay, I can't think of a way to feel more "in the know" about the war on terrorism than to read The One Percent Doctrine.

Two Minute Bush Quiz

Time for a short survey. Take the 10 question George W. Bush Quiz (it won't take more than a minute or two) and find out your opinion of the president. Do you think he is a great president, or greatest president ever? Or perhaps is he a little less exalted in your eyes? (Careful, the NSA is taking names.)

After taking the quiz, post your score and the quiz's comment, along with the score you expected. I'm curious to see where you all stand. Consider that with Bush's approval rating at around 40%, we can assume that the average American would rate him a 4 of 10 on this scale.

And yes, I know the quiz is a bit poorly written and (more than) a bit biased, and that there's no real room for middle ground. Nonetheless, my results came out pretty much as expected. The quiz said I rated Bush a 6 out of 10, with the following comment:

"You'’re not the biggest fan of President Bush, but you think he has done a decent job as president. You may disagree with him on a lot of issues - and some facts you'd just as soon ignore--but he'’s the president, and you'’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Sounds about right.

Dubya's Doldrums

Political capital? What political capital? Everyone seems to have their own explanation as to why President Bush's second term, which had a lot of momentum at its outset, has ground to a virtual halt. While David Broder offers "scandal" as an answer in today's Washington Post, I think the administration's current woes can be summed up in one word: fatigue. No, I'm not referring to that theory popularly reported in the media some weeks ago that key Bush staffers weren't getting enough Zzzs. The problem as I see is it that no issue has been able to capture and hold the attention of the American public.

Of course, this has partly worked in his favor, as the attacks that he or the Republican Party have faced over a litany of sore spots seem to have come exclusively from newspaper editorial pages and the blogosphere. Meanwhile, the general public seems to have tuned out ever since they grew weary of being disgusted with the government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, Iraq fatigue seems to have set in, as the latest headline news coming out of the country is being ignored by the public as more of the same. Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war crowd aren't active and getting press attention like they were a year ago. Reports of a possible massacre of Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha has not produced the same widespread reaction that the Abu Ghraib story did when it broke. And lastly, recent political developments in Iraq--both positive and negative--have been underreported.

That's just on the Iraq front however. Congressional scandal has hit both sides of the aisle, with Democrats getting their holier-than-thou image dealt a blow when stacks upon stacks of big-note bills (to the tune of $90,000) were found in the freezer of Lousiana Rep. William Jefferson. And how about the President's major initiatives? The big push for Social Security reform, which was touted over a year ago as necessary in order to avert a crisis, has been buried. In its place: immigration reform. While this issue has raised some passionate feelings on all sides, I think that most people, myself included, feel like this is another issue in which much discussion will take place and ultimately no meaningful legislation will pass.

On the subject of things blowing over, how about that domestic surveillance "scandal"? For the most part, the public has shrugged and looked the other way. Personally, I'm not given to public gloating very often, but humor me by recalling my December post "Spying Storm Will Blow Over." At the time I wrote "this is not going to be the major scandal some predict" and "most of the discourse will take place in the editorial pages of major newspapers and unfortunately not on the proverbial 'street corners.'" Told ya so!

It is too early to write off the rest of Bush's term. I want to see him rebound and get some meaningful accomplishments done. For his sake and the country's, it is important that we figure out how to get Iraq right, make sure Iran doesn't go wrong, steer the economy away from a slowdown, and deal with other foreign and domestic items on the agenda. Time is running out for you, Mr. President, but I don't think it's too late. Find a fresh way to get us all engaged again.

Defending Bush on the Ports Deal

Richard Cohen emerges as another unlikely Bush defender over the UAE ports deal. (His Post colleague David Ignatius and the New York Times' Nick Kristof have also written columns this week taking a similar stance.) I cut out the article and highlighted the following few paragraphs to show to Muslim friends:

The politic thing for a president with a dismal approval rating (about 40 percent) would have been to join with the critics, get ahead of the anti-Arab wave and announce that he, too, was concerned about the deal, which was the fault, now that he thought about it, of pointy-headed bureaucrats, Democrats and the occasional atheist. Instead, the White House stuck to its guns, ordering a symbolic retreat -- more study -- but continuing to back the deal.

That Bush has done this should come as no surprise. As a bigot he leaves a lot to be desired. He has refused to pander to anti-immigration forces, and shortly after Sept. 11, if you will remember, he visited Washington's Islamic Center. He reassured American Muslims and the worldwide Islamic community that neither America nor its government were waging war on an entire people.

"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said back then -- and he has since repeated this message over and over again. That very year -- in November 2001 -- Bush invited 52 Muslim diplomats to a traditional Iftar dinner, breaking the daily Ramadan fast, and he has occasionally cited purported racism as the reason some people doubt the Muslim world will, as Bush so fervently wishes, make progress toward democracy. They think people whose skin is "a different color than white" are incapable of self-government, he has said.

The Speech Bush Should Give

My first column as an op-ed writer for the University of Maryland's Diamondback runs today, addressing tomorrow's State of the Union.

On Tuesday President Bush will, for the sixth time, deliver the State of the Union address. News reports state he is still working on his big speech. Luckily for him, I’ve taken the liberty of preparing the remarks he should deliver tomorrow night:

Good evening and thank you all for being here. Originally, I planned to come out and talk about the “war on terror” in a superficial manner, sprinkled with a liberal dose of tough rhetoric. Then, to further pander to the FOX News crowd, I was going to talk about tax cuts. Luckily for the rest of you, my good friend Jay intervened. He suggested that what the majority of American people are looking for is for me to be open and straightforward with them. Tonight, I promise I will not “spin,” I will not smirk and I will not mispronounce the n-word. “Newkillyear” … “nyookiller” … well, nevermind.

[Click to read the rest of "The Real State of the Union"]

In accordance with the Diamondback's rules on professionalism, I ask that family members and non-UM friends post any comments on this blog page rather than on the school paper's site.

Additionally, some of you may notice a similarity between Friday's Thomas Friedman column and my own. Rest assured, I am not the next Jayson Blair (who, incidentally, was a Maryland alum and former Diamondback editor). The Diamondback's publication schedule is such that I initially submitted my column last Monday, a full week ago, and four days before I saw Friedman's piece. Great minds think alike?

Writing for a student newspaper is different from blogging; anyone have ideas?

Sensible Proposals from a Democrat

Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) has a good piece in today's Washington Post entitled "Keeping the Progress Going". While he doesn't have anything particularly groundbreaking to say, I was impressed with the moderate, constructive position he stakes out on a number of issues. Considering he lost out to Nancy Pelosi for the Democrats' House leadership position, I can only imagine the different position the part would be in had his agenda been in place. After all, on one hand you have the Bush administration, detached from some of the harsh realities of war and diplomacy as well as the need to respect constitutional authority at home. On the other hand, you have the Democratic party leadership of Reid and Pelosi who operate reflexively against Bush and the Republicans without offering any constructive solutions of their own.

Ford is a realist. He acknowledges progress in Afghanistan and Iraq and rejects the idea of some of his Democratic colleagues that American troops should return home immediately. Says Ford, "I want the troops home as much as anyone, but having to send another generation to that region to fight 10 or more years from now because we left too early would be a worse outcome than the situation we now face. We need to do this right the first time." Amen, brother.

His platform includes a call for Bush to end his controversial domestic spying program ("We are a nation of laws. We cannot be in the business of exporting democracy and liberty if we cannot protect it at home.") Yet Ford does not deny the president the authority needed to protect national security; he just suggests that legislation in Congress create the necessary adjustments to the current system.

Ford's also puts in a call for an increased commitment to improved foreign relations. That in itself is a generic sentiment, but I was pleasantly surprised that his affirmation of the U.N. contained a push for reform of that organization--an idea that is a staple of the right-wing.

Why aren't more Democrats putting forth definitive positions and constructive ideas instead of engaging in endless partisan sniping or self-aggrandization? Ford is running for the Senate in 2006; I hope he succeeds. The Democratic Party, if it wants the public to realize that it stands for something, should be promoting more intelligent voices like Harold Ford's. He shows us there is a viable middle ground between caving to the Bush administration and the hysteria of the extreme left-wing.

Spying Storm Will Blow Over

Just a quick point to anyone out there who, amidst recent comparisons to Watergate regarding abuse of presidential power, might be thinking of the "i-word": Nixon was impeached for abusing his powers in an attempt to squash the opposition political party; the current president appears to have circumvented existing law in an attempt to secure the country from terrorists.

Breaking the law to do so isn't a good thing, of course, but somehow I don't think that Joe Public is going to make a big fuss about his civil liberties when, like John Dickerson says in the podcast linked to in my previous post, "regular folks...think about bombings at their shopping mall or at their theater, they'll side with the president."

My prediction? Some compromise will be reached and existing laws may be modified, but this is not going to be the major scandal some predict. It is definitely a very, very important issue, and one that needs to be publicly debated, but I suspect that most of the discourse will take place in the editorial pages of major newspapers and unfortunately not on the proverbial "street corners" of this country. Despite what you might see in the New York Times (recently, a full page ad by the ACLU making the Nixon connection), civil liberties just aren't that sexy.

CB Archive: "Spy Games" (December 21, 2005)

Spy Games

The reaction of some of my more liberal friends and family to my recent post praising Bush for accepting "responsibility" for the situation in Iraq was predictable, but instructive nonetheless. They were not impressed with what they saw as a bare-bones attempt at rectifying a serious wrong. I'm reminded of that old Simpsons episode where Lisa tells Homer "the first step is admitting you have a problem." Homer responds "Is it the last step?" If only!

Richard Cohen wrote on Tuesday that responsibility needs to be replaced with accountability. It's one thing to say "I am responsible", but like Jay Leno quipped, "Yeah, well, I don't think [Bush] has to worry about other people trying to take credit for that one." I hope that, given the president's sorta-kinda-"mea culpa" on Sunday, he is on the road to reform.

A big test of accountability will be seen with how the whole NSA domestic spying kerfuffle plays out. For those of you who missed it, the New York Times sparked a firestorm a couple days ago with the revelation that after 9/11, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans inside the U.S. without requiring court-issued warrants.

The ensuing uproar has focused on the limits of the power of the president and the further encroachment on civil liberties. Tuesday's Post contained three editorials on the subject, all worth reading. Eugene Robinson decried Bush's convenient dismissal of "strict constructionism" and for bypassing the "legally established procedure to obtain warrants for such domestic surveillance." Conservative commentator George Will is also upset with the president, saying that while the executive does have extraordinary rights during wartime, Bush's bypass of Congress raises the "danger of arbitrary power." In defense of the president, William Kristol and Gary Schmitt laid a convincing argument for the executive's discretion. After all, even Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War.

Thus far, Bush has come out swinging in outspoken defense of the spy program, even charging that the Times has endangered national security with its revelation. While that line of attack is lame and diversionary, I have not yet reached a conclusion as to what to think about this issue. Understandably, these kinds of actions help in the fight against terrorism, and most of us cheer when we see the gang at CTU make full use of them on 24. Yet in real life, I remain wary of the idea of devaluing basic American ideals in order to fight a war--one to maintain our values --against an enemy that has none.

Bush on Iraq: Work in Progress

It's been over two months since I last posted here, my busy schedule having convinced me to take a break from the site for a while. In the next couple weeks, however, I hope to get back into the swing of things. I'm considering a new format with more emphasis on sports and pop culture, and adding frequent short posts with links to interesting articles interspersed between my usual essays. That's the plan at least, but first...

President Bush addressed the nation in a live televised speech Sunday night to talk about the situation in Iraq (see full text). To his detractors, it was yet another easy opportunity to dismiss the usual "same old cheerleading." This time, however, I was inclined to disagree. It seems to me that in recent weeks, the administration has been taking a different tack toward handling criticism of the war. Instead of completely ignoring the very idea that opposition to the war even exists, Bush & Co. are now making more of an effort to engage skeptics and convince them of the wisdom of staying the course. And the slogan "Mission Accomplished" seems to have finally been replaced with the more accurate "Work in Progress".

This speech, then, is quite a big deal. Bush was elected as a man whose popularity was derived from a leadership style seen as removed from the fickleness of ratings and poll numbers. While the idea sounded admirable, it didn't work too well when practiced to the extreme, and now it seems the president has realized he has a responsibility to serve the interests of the public that elected him. At a time when the public is increasingly questioning the war, it only seems right that he take the opportunity to address their concerns.

In Sunday night's speech, Bush acknowledged the lack of WMD's in Iraq. saying "much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," but with refreshing candor added "as your President, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq." Furthermore, he continued by admitting to the ongoing "danger and suffering and loss" and explicitly stated that the situation has "led some to ask if we are creating more problems than we are solving." He went on to give a compelling answer to that question, citing critical progress while answering key criticisms at each turn.

To the question of whether the Iraq war was hurting the war on terrorism, Bush memorably responded "the answer depends on your view of the war on terror. If you think the terrorists would become peaceful if only America would stop provoking them, then it might make sense to leave them alone...We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them." Bush went on to admit that the reconstruction of Iraq was going slower than expected, but importantly pointed out that progress was being made despite "the grim results [of the insurgency] on the evening news." Judging by events like last week's successful elections in Iraq, I believed the President when he said:

"For every scene of destruction in Iraq, there are more scenes of rebuilding and hope. For every life lost, there are countless more lives reclaimed. And for every terrorist working to stop freedom in Iraq, there are many more Iraqis and Americans working to defeat them. My fellow citizens: Not only can we win the war in Iraq -- we are winning the war in Iraq."

The last part of Bush's speech was more reminiscent of the triumphant tone and well-worn cliches of the administration's past, but on the whole, I believe the content of the speech definitely merited attention--enough so, at least, to justify the delayed airing of the new Family Guy.

My major concern now is that even with the administration's new, more diplomatic approach, it may be too late. While I share the president's belief in the need to stay in Iraq until the job is finished, Congress and the American public are already deeply entrenched in their own views of the Iraq war, and there is little reason to anticipate that anyone will change their minds now. If only this speech had come a year ago, it might have been so much more meaningful. I'm glad President Bush is doing more to acknowledge the tough reality of the war; I just wish he had done so earlier, at a time when more people were willing to believe the sacrifices are worth it.

Dubya 2.0

On Thursday at noon, President Bush delivered the inaugural address to his second term. He appeared markedly confident and in charge, signaling a leader who has grown into the role over four years. His speech was decent, but unfortunately afflicted by singlemindedness. No issue on the domestic agenda was addressed, nor any specific foreign policy issue. Instead we saw a celebration and exposition of American ideals by a wartime president. In spirit it may have been FDR's or Kennedy's, if only it had been more substantative and better delivered.

Bush's major problem was that he focused exclusively on grandiose rhetoric. As soon as the transcript became available online, I rushed to count the number of times the words "freedom" and "liberty" appeared. Jon Stewart did the same on The Daily Show with a running scoreboard, ultimately finding Freedom to prevail over Liberty by a score of 27-15 (to which Stewart dryly noted that "Liberty...has been playing hurt since the Patriot Act".)

The President's speech, promising at first, became a slapstick collection of cliché statements. The longer I watched, the less plausible his words seemed. All his lofty talk of America standing up for human rights and liberty and defending the oppressed--those ideals haven't always been the hallmark of Bush's first term. If those are indeed the core beliefs he is so committed to, then where was the U.S. when the genocide in Sudan broke out? Why isn't Bush encouraging friends like Musharraf or Putin to show a little more love for freedom and liberty?

The inaugural address proved to be quite enlightening to anyone who didn't already know that the President espoused freedom. Which is not to suggest that Bush's words be dismissed entirely. On the contrary, the principles he laid out in his speech are admirable. But I can only hope that Bush, after having "talked the talk", will in his second term "walk the walk." I'm still waiting for him to explain to us what he plans to actually do with his additional four years, especially with regards to Social Security (one House Republican has already termed the Bush plan a "dead horse") and the growing threat from Iran (especially in light of Sy Hersh's report and Vice President Cheney's speculation that Israel might strike first.)

Many questions remain to be answered. What that means is that the important speech to pay attention to is still to come--on February 2, when the President clues us in to the "State of the Union". It promises to be interesting, to say the least. For now, all I have left to say is, good luck to you Mr. Bush, and to all of us, in the next four years. We just might need it!