{"id":244,"date":"2007-02-02T08:38:34","date_gmt":"2007-02-02T13:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/02\/bushs-biggest-bosh-2nd-anniv\/"},"modified":"2007-02-02T11:04:51","modified_gmt":"2007-02-02T16:04:51","slug":"bushs-biggest-bosh-2nd-anniv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/02\/bushs-biggest-bosh-2nd-anniv\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s Biggest Bosh – 2nd Anniv."},"content":{"rendered":"

Following is the lead and wrap-up of a piece\u00a0 I did for the February issue of Freedom Daily. The Future of Freedom Foundation<\/a><\/strong> will put the full text online later this year.<\/p>\n

The Second Anniversary of Bush’s Worst Bosh<\/strong>
\nby James Bovard<\/p>\n

Two years ago last month, Bush gave his second inaugural address. As I watched the speech on television, I and perhaps millions of other Americans struggled to answer the obvious question about the speech: Is it puerile or is it merely tripe?<\/p>\n

Bush was hailed throughout the greater Washington metropolitan area for a speech that invoked freedom and liberty almost 50 times. The Washington Post headlined its report on the spiel, “An Ambitious President Advances His Idealism.” The Council on Foreign Relations’s Max Boot cheered that Bush “is signaling basically victory or bust … no backing down.” Liberal columnist Andrew Sullivan swooned, “Who could disagree with the stirring, elegant and somewhat sweeping address the president just gave?” Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, gushed that the speech was “powerful,” “subtle,” “historic,” “sophisticated,” “nuanced,” and “profoundly right.”<\/p>\n

Though Bush invoked freedom ad nauseam, none of his comments referred to restrictions on U.S. government power. Instead, they sanctified the president’s right to forcibly intervene abroad wherever he believes it is necessary to “spread freedom.” Like Khrushchev banging his shoe on the podium at the United Nations, Bush was shouting “We will bury you!” to anyone whom he and his cronies label an enemy of freedom….<\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Washingtonians were not the only ones to get snowed by Bush’s rhetoric. Two days after Bush’s second inaugural, I was stuck in a middle seat of a flight from D.C. to Dallas. I wedged in between a chubby little 14-year-old boy and a tripwire-tense Air Force enlisted man.<\/p>\n

The kid asked me, “Did you go to the inauguration Thursday?”<\/p>\n

I smiled and said no. I asked whether he did. His eyes lit up, his face awoke, and he declared, “Yes!” He told me he was from Bush’s hometown, Midland, Texas.<\/p>\n

“What did you think of the speech?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“I loved every word of it!”<\/p>\n

“So you think it is a good idea for the U.S. to be spreading freedom?”<\/p>\n

‘Oh yes. We have to do that.”<\/p>\n

“Are you concerned about going to war to spread freedom?” I asked nonchalantly.<\/p>\n

The Air Force dude erupted, “Don’t listen to him! This guy hates America! This guy hates our president! Don’t listen to a single thing he says!” After his foam dried, we exchanged a few words and his hinges nearly failed him as I calmly recited a few Bush and Cheney WMD falsehoods.<\/p>\n

Nearing landing, the boy asked a question or two about my views. My replies were fairly tame but he squinted and said warily, “You sound like you hate the government.”<\/p>\n

I smiled. “No. I don’t hate the government. I just think its power should be limited.”<\/p>\n

His suspicions of me remained.<\/p>\n

“What should government be doing? What is its main purpose?” I asked.<\/p>\n

The kid paused, struggled briefly, and then replied, “Keep people under control.”<\/p>\n

This is the new American vision of freedom that Bush seeks to impose around the world. This type of freedom does far more to empower politicians than liberate citizens. If politicians can redefine freedom at their whim, then they can raze limits on their own power.<\/p>\n

Just because a president’s comments are insipid does not mean they are innocuous.<\/strong> Americans cannot preserve their rights if they take their political reality from the person with the most to gain from subverting freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following is the lead and wrap-up of a piece\u00a0 I did for the February issue of Freedom Daily. The Future of Freedom Foundation will put the full text online later this year. The Second Anniversary of Bush’s Worst Bosh by James Bovard Two years ago last month, Bush gave his second inaugural address. As I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[659,22,6,10,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-bovard","9":"tag-bush","10":"tag-messianic-democracy"},"yoast_head":"\nBush's Biggest Bosh - 2nd Anniv. - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/02\/bushs-biggest-bosh-2nd-anniv\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bush's Biggest Bosh - 2nd Anniv. - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following is the lead and wrap-up of a piece\u00a0 I did for the February issue of Freedom Daily. 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