The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. ...So who wrote all that? Probably some lefty journalist, right? Some liberal NPR commentator. No, Peggy Noonan wrote all that. You know the speech writer for Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and advisor for W's reelection campaign in 2004.
A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty. ...
The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. ...
Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. ...
"Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."
This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.
One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded.
Sure, I've cherry-picked the quotes, but they accurately reflect the overarching theme of her piece.
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