His lips are moving. <img src="{att_link}10011.png" class="frame" align="right" title="Inauguration Speech Rundown">It's an old joke, and a bad one, but hell, he's earned it. Take the gala event from last week, where he obliged to let some words drop out of his mouth for the great unwashed to gather up and cherish. It was only twenty one minutes long, but was carefully worded and notable for both what was in it and what was not. As always, he sees no need to reference reality in any way whatsoever, instead mouthing palliatives for the masses --- soothing baby talk to calm them so they "stay the course". An objective look at the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20BUSH-TEXT.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=" title="Inaugural Address by George W. Bush">Inaugural Address</a> should quickly conclude that what he's saying in no way matches up with he's doing. It's not even an elegant scam; he just plain says one thing and does the exact opposite. Using that as a guide, you can figure out what the next four years will be like by playing the "opposites game". <h>Other takes on it</h> <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/163xwdvu.asp?pg=1" author="William Kristol" source="The Weekly Standard">On Tyranny</a> is the right's take on the speech, pronouncing it as having <iq>ushered in a new era in American foreign policy</iq>, but only if <iq>actions follow words</iq>. Anyone else would be gut-laughing so hard by now, they wouldn't be able to write further, but Bill soldiers on and concludes that <iq>President Bush has it right---profoundly right</iq>. You know, if you take Bush's words at face value, he has a point. A lot of what he has to say sounds pretty good. Actions never follow words with Bush and the opposite always happens. We're in deep shit. <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play.jhtml?reposid=/multimedia/tds/stewart/jon_10011.html" source="The Daily Show" author="Jon Stewart">Inauguration Speech Rundown</a> (Windows Media Player) has some clips from it, showing just how often Bush felt the need to say the words 'freedom' and 'liberty': 27 and 15 respectively. You heard those a lot, but there were a lot of other somewhat important themes that weren't mentioned by name. <h>What don't we talk about?</h> No longer do we mention 9/11 by name, but instead call it <iq>a day of fire</iq>. That sounds much more biblical. Then we can listen to him describe, with no sense of irony whatsoever, <iq>whole regions of the world</iq> as being <iq>prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder</iq>. These words fit the U.S. itself quite well; the world need only look to Abu Ghraib and the whole Iraq war for an example. <bq>The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. ... So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.</bq> However, we don't want to be too pushy, so <iq>America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.</iq> Oh my God, I'm gonna cry. That sounds so beautiful. As long as you don't think about Iraq --- there we are kind of imposing our style of government. The President's good at ignoring stuff like that, though - he didn't mention Iraq once. He also didn't mention "war", "brave men and women" or "military". Again, we are faced with a massive disconnect between the words that are written for him (<iq>shipwreck of communism</iq>? C'mon, there's no <i>way</i> he wrote that ... it probably confused the hell out of him). How are the people of the world, who don't so easily forget or ignore America's actions*, supposed to swallow a sentence like this one? <n>*By which I mean what actually happened, not the fairy tale rendering of history with which America is happy to be lulled to sleep every night.</n> <bq>All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.</bq> The only reason there aren't more people that could personally refute that sentence is that they all died when we failed to do just that. Or when we decided to support the dictator against which they rebelled. Sorry about that. Just in Iraq, there are tens of thousands who can no longer complain that America did not support their uprising (after the first Gulf War) because Saddam killed them all. The U.S. didn't feel that the uprising against Saddam would respect America's interests properly and let them drop and die, keeping Saddam in power instead as a preferable alternative. Social Security reform is also only tangentially mentioned, with more talk of an <iq>ownership society</iq> wherein every citizen is <iq>an agent of his or her own destiny</iq>. He does not mention how poor most of those agents will be. <h>Uncle Sam Wants You!</h> Iraq, which is somewhat of a theme for a lot of people in America and will be taking quite a large amount of time, money and lives, gets only an oblique, veiled mention when Bush says that we, as a country*, have <iq>accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon</iq>. Which, translated, means "sit tight, there's plenty more where that came from". The soldiers in Iraq, who, once dead, have gotten little to no attention from the administration, are also very obliquely mentioned in his speech as <iq>A few Americans [who] have accepted the hardest duties ... [and] have shown their devotion to our country in deaths</iq>. <n>Remember that, according to Bush, voting him back into office put a stamp of approval over <i>every single one</i> of his decisions in his first term, which includes, naturally, everything about Iraq</n> Then he just starts flat out lying when he says also that they are engaged in the <iq>quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy ... the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments</iq>. And, just because he can, he finishes up by saying that <iq>we will always honor their names and their sacrifice</iq>. Unless, by honor, you mean actually doing something like going to their funerals or acknowledging that they existed. Or preventing further deaths from happening. Bush don't play that. And then ... and then, I shit you not, he actually pitches the military to the youth of America! He exhorts them to <iq>[m]ake the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself and in your days* you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.</iq> <n>*Which are almost certainly numbered. -ed.</n> <h>Fuggedaboudit</h> He finishes strong, with many carefully crafted sentences about <iq>reaffirming all that is good and true ... forever</iq>, that even the <iq>unwanted have worth</iq> and that we're all <iq>bound to one another in the cause of freedom</iq>. It's quite frankly a bit over the top and reads much more like a sermon than like the inauguration speech of a president who's <i>already served four years</i>. That's the brilliant part of this speech --- he doesn't acknowledge anything that's happened at all. He acts as if this is the first time he's addressing the American people. And, just like the last couple of State of the Union addresses he's given: he mentions stuff like steroids, Moon and Mars bases and all sorts of distracting stuff that he will never, ever mention again. Since this is not his first term and the more attentive among us can see that what he says <i>never</i> lines up with what he does, we can safely ignore the entirety of his speech. You can rest assured that Bush will.