Swagger
Swagger
Posted 00:53am (Mla time) Jan 22, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 22, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE 55TH presidential inaugural in American history held Thursday night (Manila time) formally set the 43rd president of the United States on his second and last term. George W. Bush successfully sought reelection as a wartime president. But unlike his wartime predecessors, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, there was nothing austere about the inaugural or the preparations for it.
The inauguration was actually the highlight of a week-long affair that began with a military gala and a youth concert on Jan. 18, musical acts, entertainment and a fireworks display on the 19th, the inauguration itself at noon on the 20th, followed by a parade and nine inaugural balls that evening. Of the inaugural balls, one was a new addition: the Commander-in-Chief Ball. This event was free of charge to 2,000 members of the armed services and their families, featuring those who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who would be deployed there soon.
The inaugural festivities cost a whopping $40 million, amid criticisms that the money would have been better spent for tsunami victims' relief, or simply set the amount aside since the United States is at war. The primacy of big business in the reinaugurated administration's scheme of things was illustrated by CEOs being "asked" to donate tens of thousands of dollars each for seats at the various inaugural balls, and for other "contributions," viewed as nothing more or less than payback.
Preparations for the inaugural parade were marred by a court case being filed by protesters, who alleged that their democratic rights were trampled by security measures and their being shunted aside as a result: most of the parade route from the US Capitol to the White House was occupied by bleachers reserved for those who had donated funds for the inaugural. A group calling itself Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (Answer) protested the reserved bleachers. But a judge threw out the case saying, "It's clear, as I think it always has been, that the official inaugural parade and the bleachers connected with it get the bulk of the space." Protesters retained the right to distribute literature and carry signs, but the US Secret Service forbade signs to be attached to sticks or poles that could be used as weapons.
Stripped of the hoopla and controversy, the reality is that the second term of George W. Bush is of tremendous significance for America and the world. On the eve of the second Bush inaugural, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh published a piece examining the American president's significantly increased power over intelligence and covert operations. What sparked headlines around the globe was an unnamed source telling Hersh that US military action against Iran is already underway. According to the source, with the help of Pakistan, the Bush administration has sent reconnaissance teams into Iran for some months now. Furthermore, Bush had authorized secret commando groups to target terrorists in at least 10 nations, as well as approved the recruitment of local "action teams."
Hersh points out that since these missions are classified as military-rather than intelligence-operations, they are not bound by existing American legal restrictions on the Central Intelligence Agency in reporting to the US Congress its covert operations.The world can therefore expect more war, more cloak-and-dagger operations, more of what made Bush so unpopular and America so feared and despised the world over. What's more, with his electoral triumph, the world view of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the leading neoconservatives in the White House, are all the more on the ascendant, while the chances of moderates to influence policy have been significantly lessened by the very public marginalization or outright removal from office of known moderates such as Colin Powell.
There was a brief time when it seemed that Bush would be more conciliatory, less reckless, a little more willing to listen. The triumphalism and the swagger of his second inaugural dispel all doubts that this is a man who feels he has all the more reason to push ahead with his God-appointed mission.
Posted 00:53am (Mla time) Jan 22, 2005
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 22, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
THE 55TH presidential inaugural in American history held Thursday night (Manila time) formally set the 43rd president of the United States on his second and last term. George W. Bush successfully sought reelection as a wartime president. But unlike his wartime predecessors, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, there was nothing austere about the inaugural or the preparations for it.
The inauguration was actually the highlight of a week-long affair that began with a military gala and a youth concert on Jan. 18, musical acts, entertainment and a fireworks display on the 19th, the inauguration itself at noon on the 20th, followed by a parade and nine inaugural balls that evening. Of the inaugural balls, one was a new addition: the Commander-in-Chief Ball. This event was free of charge to 2,000 members of the armed services and their families, featuring those who recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who would be deployed there soon.
The inaugural festivities cost a whopping $40 million, amid criticisms that the money would have been better spent for tsunami victims' relief, or simply set the amount aside since the United States is at war. The primacy of big business in the reinaugurated administration's scheme of things was illustrated by CEOs being "asked" to donate tens of thousands of dollars each for seats at the various inaugural balls, and for other "contributions," viewed as nothing more or less than payback.
Preparations for the inaugural parade were marred by a court case being filed by protesters, who alleged that their democratic rights were trampled by security measures and their being shunted aside as a result: most of the parade route from the US Capitol to the White House was occupied by bleachers reserved for those who had donated funds for the inaugural. A group calling itself Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (Answer) protested the reserved bleachers. But a judge threw out the case saying, "It's clear, as I think it always has been, that the official inaugural parade and the bleachers connected with it get the bulk of the space." Protesters retained the right to distribute literature and carry signs, but the US Secret Service forbade signs to be attached to sticks or poles that could be used as weapons.
Stripped of the hoopla and controversy, the reality is that the second term of George W. Bush is of tremendous significance for America and the world. On the eve of the second Bush inaugural, veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh published a piece examining the American president's significantly increased power over intelligence and covert operations. What sparked headlines around the globe was an unnamed source telling Hersh that US military action against Iran is already underway. According to the source, with the help of Pakistan, the Bush administration has sent reconnaissance teams into Iran for some months now. Furthermore, Bush had authorized secret commando groups to target terrorists in at least 10 nations, as well as approved the recruitment of local "action teams."
Hersh points out that since these missions are classified as military-rather than intelligence-operations, they are not bound by existing American legal restrictions on the Central Intelligence Agency in reporting to the US Congress its covert operations.The world can therefore expect more war, more cloak-and-dagger operations, more of what made Bush so unpopular and America so feared and despised the world over. What's more, with his electoral triumph, the world view of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, the leading neoconservatives in the White House, are all the more on the ascendant, while the chances of moderates to influence policy have been significantly lessened by the very public marginalization or outright removal from office of known moderates such as Colin Powell.
There was a brief time when it seemed that Bush would be more conciliatory, less reckless, a little more willing to listen. The triumphalism and the swagger of his second inaugural dispel all doubts that this is a man who feels he has all the more reason to push ahead with his God-appointed mission.
posted by Dante at 12:53 AM
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