On the inaugural address

Wise words from Victor Hansen Davis over at NR's "Corner":

This is the first time that an American president has committed the United States to side with democratic reformers worldwide. The end of the cold war has allowed us such parameters, but the American people also should be aware of the hard and necessary decisions entailed in such idealism that go way beyond the easy rhetoric of calling for change in Cuba, Syria, or Iran-distancing ourselves from the Saudi Royal Family, pressuring the Mubarak dynasty to hold real elections, hoping that a Pakistan can liberalize without becoming a theocracy, and navigating with Putin in matters of the former Soviet republics, all the while pressuring nuclear China, swaggering with cash and confidence, to allow its citizens real liberty. I wholeheartedly endorse the president's historic stance, but also accept that we live in an Orwellian world, where, for example, the liberal-talking Europeans are reactionary-doing realists who trade with anyone who pays and appease anyone who has arms-confident in their culture's ability always to package that abject realpolitik in the highest utopian rhetoric. But nonetheless the president has formally declared that we at least will be on the right side of history and thus we have to let his critics sort of their own moral calculus.

As you can see I finally figured out what that "quotes" button does.

As Dr. Hansen points out -- following the moral imperative of global democratization is going to run into real world opposition and have important costs both at home and abroad. We have to consider these before committing to a broad course of action. Of course, the democratic process and the two party system will ensure that the caveats will be given a full hearing. The opposition party will oppose mightily Bush's agenda, craven politicians will run for cover, and in the end some watered down version of Bush's initiative will go into effect. That is right and good. Bush is, as Hansen states, on the right side of history, but you don't change the world overnight, and no president, no matter how morally sure of the rightness of his cause, can commit his successors perpetually to follow a course of action that they and the American public might judge unwise. And all efforts at leadership must run up against the principle of popular sovereignty. The people must give their consent. Let the debate begin!

One of the TV commentators [I forget which one] noted the irony that Bush's statement of principle puts us in league with Usama bin Laden. We both want to topple Middle-East tyrannies. That's fine as far as it goes: but the crucial difference is in what follows the fall. Usama and his pals want to install Islamist tyrannies, we want to install pluralistic democracies. There is no moral equivalency here.