January 24, 2005
The Inaugural Speech II
I finished Sharansky's book on Saturday and I considered myself fortunate to be in the middle of it during President Bush's second inaugural address. It is clearly a source. LyingInPonds notes the similarity:
I finally had the chance to view President Bush's Second Inaugural Address, this evening, and I was struck by how familiar it was.This familiarity was a good thing. The speech (at least, the foreign policy aspect) was clearly based on a book that I recently read, and one that I know President Bush read in the last few months: Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny & Terror.
Jim Geraghty says "I think that speech is going to do wonders for Natan Sharansky's book sales." But he also points out something:
Still, this speech is being intensely analyzed and discussed far beyond the Beltway - in Pyongyang, Riyadh, Tehran, and in other unfriendly foreign capitals. While some conservatives might have a quibble or a question or two, this speech will be despised by all the right people.
Amen. I'm very sorry that Frum, Noonan, and a lot of speechwriters that I trust did not like it. I enjoyed reading it better than hearing it (My President is not the best orator...) but I thought that it was important, that democrats in Tehran would be passing it around their jail cells. That it would make the right enemies.
I heard on FoxNewsSunday that it may have made the right friends. Bill Kristol told that Sharansky himself had watched the speech, that the tough man's voice broke a little as he said "I only wish Sakharov were alive to hear an American President give this speech."