In an inaugural speech characterized by calls for “freedom” [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24581-2005Jan20.html ] around the world, President George W. Bush touched upon foreign policy objectives that little resemble his actions in the past four years. Addressing the world at large, Bush said, “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.” As a Washington Post analysis [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23519-2005Jan20.html ] pointed out, “President Bush’s soaring rhetoric… is at odds with the administration’s increasingly close relations with repressive governments in every corner of the world.” Without mentioning the Iraq occupation Bush depicted the conflict there “as part of a much broader mission, which he phrased in almost messianic [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1395432,00.html ] terms.”
Despite his disregard for international human rights conventions and endorsement of the use of torture against detainees, Bush declared that “In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.” Bush’s “empty exercise in deceit” [ http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1&pid=2139 ] was delivered while police were “removing peaceful protesters from the regal one’s line of sight and “gassing” [ http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0504,ridgeway3,60331,6.html ] protesters with pepper spray.
Cable news coverage of the inauguration on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC was tilted with viewers hearing from an overwhelming number of conservative guests and commentators. According to Media Matters for America [ http://mediamatters.org/items/200501210001 ], “Between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Republican and conservative guests and commentators outnumbered Democrats and progressives 17 to 6 on FOX, 10 to 1 on CNN… and 13 to 2 on MSNBC.”
In a pre-inaugural interview with Don Imus [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24677-2005Jan20.html ], Vice President Dick Cheney attributed the chaotic situation in Iraq to the inability of its people to recover from the trauma of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Cheney said, the old regime “made the situation tougher than I would have thought. I would chalk that one up as a miscalculation, where I thought things would have recovered more quickly.” Reinforcing the increasingly warlike rumblings in the administration towards Iran, Cheney declared it “a top threat to world peace and Middle East stability”, accusing Tehran of sponsoring terrorism against Americans and building a ‘fairly robust new nuclear program.’” In remarks reminiscent of administration threats before the Iraq invasion, Cheney said that if current negotiations fail, the United States would ask the U.N. Security Council to impose international sanctions on Iran. Bush sought U.N action shortly before invading Iraq.
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