After what was near universal praise of President Bush's inaugural address Thursday, many conservative pundits have begun to rethink their praise over the last couple days. The new mood seems to be that the president's basic ideas were good, but that he should have taken a more "moderate" tone.
This is absurd.
President Bush was absolutely right in everything he said Thursday. For too long Americans have fallen victim to this cynic realism that dictatorships are tolerable as long as they promote our national interests. Freedom's spread across the world best promotes our nation's interest, not appeasing dictators just because they might be sitting on large oil reserves.
It was exactly the same ideas that President Bush expressed on Thursday that were held by our forefathers during the revolution. It was exactly the same ideals that President Roosevelt held when he committed America to saving the world from Nazism and Fascism. And it was exactly the same ideals that President Reagan held when he confronted the Soviet Union.
America's security and well-being will only be fully secured once every man and woman live in freedom. Though this won't happen in our lifetimes, or probably our children's' lifetimes, every man and woman who thirsts for freedom should always find a friend in the United States. And at least under President Bush we know that that will be the case.
UPDATE (Sunday, 10:16 A.M.): Robert Kagan has some good insight on the president's address.
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