Bush's Second Inaugural

George W. Bush just finished giving his second inaugural address after being sworn in, and it was perhaps the most hypocritical and duplicitous melange of rhetoric he's delivered since Monday. It was full of platitudes about securing freedom and how America has been at the forefront of promoting freedom all over the world for decades. (That loud sound you might have heard is the sound of jaws dropping all over Latin America - especially Chile.) He stressed the importance of helping to expand freedom to others - didn't he read his own tax and budget cut proposals? - and the need to free women from oppression (forget for a moment his federal judiciary nominees). It is typical of not just Bush but for most Americans to see themselves as the benefactors of the world despite their own dastardly deeds against each other and the outside world. We fight over culture in a nation with very little culture, purport to honor tradition in a nation with disregard for tradition, and speak of lofty ideals in a country where one of the ultimate ideals is getting a blender at Linens 'n' Things at fifty percent off. And we speak of freedom and liberty even as we try to get non-comformists - antiwar demonstrators, social democrats, agnostics, soccer fans - to fall in line with the mainstream. As Paul Fussell once wrote, the United States overflows with pretentiousness and phoniness "because of all countries it is the most addicted to self-praise and complacency - even more than France."

C'est la vie!