What is Bush saying?(on the right)

NEW YORK, JANUARY 21

THE inaugural address was in several respects confusing. The arresting feature of it was of course the exuberant idealism. But one wonders whether signals were crossed in its production, and a lead here is some of the language used.

The commentators divulged that the speech was unusual especially in one respect, namely that President Bush turned his attention to it the very next day after his reelection. Presidents attach great importance to inaugural addresses, but they don't, as a rule, begin to think about them on the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But in this case, that is evidently what happened. And this leads the observer to wonder about some of the formulations that were used, and clumsiness that was tolerated.

Bush said that "whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny." You can simmer in resentment, but not in tyranny. He said that every man and woman on this earth has "matchless value." What does that mean? His most solemn duty as president, he said, was to protect America from "emerging threats." Did he mean, guard against emerging threats? He told the world that "there can be no human rights without human liberty." But that isn't true. The acknowledgment of human rights leads to the realization of human liberty. "The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them." What is a "habit of control"?

An inaugural address is a deliberate statement, not an improvisation. Having been informed about how long the president spent in preparing it, the listener is invited to pay attention to its message and the language in which it is conveyed.

The speech was the most committed endorsement of international human liberty ever made at an inaugural ceremony. The president seemed to be saying that unless liberty survives elsewhere, our own is vulnerable. He said that U.S. policy is "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every ...