WASHINGTON (ABP) — Amid snow and protestors, George W. Bush was sworn into his second term as president Jan. 20, vowing that the United States would “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.”
Asserting that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” Bush spent much of his 15-minute inaugural speech reinforcing his aggressive foreign policy of encouraging democracy across the Middle East and other dangerous parts of the world.
In a nod to the deep ideological divisions brought to the surface during his hotly contested re-election campaign against Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Bush promised to unite Americans.
“We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes, and I will strive in good faith to heal them,” he said. “Yet those divisions do not define America.”
Those divisions were readily apparent at the swearing-in ceremony, held on the west front of the Capitol. Prior to Bush's arrival at the Capitol, large television screens featured images of dignitaries arriving to sit on the platform. As members of the Senate arrived and the cameras focused on Kerry, loud “boos” went up from several sections of the audience.
Another example of the division likely to surface throughout Bush's second term was symbolized by his oath of office, delivered by 80-year-old William Rehnquist, chief justice of the Supreme Court.
It was Rehnquist's first public appearance since announcing last year that he was suffering from thyroid cancer. Rehnquist seemed feeble, using a cane to walk. If, as many court watchers predict, Rehnquist retires or dies in the near future, Bush is likely to face a bruising battle over the ideological perspective of his replacement on the nation's highest court.
The president — regarded by conservative evangelical Christians as one of their own — also struck a note of religious pluralism in discussing the character of the American people.
“That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people,” Bush said. “Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before — ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today and forever.”
During Bush's speech, several people opposed to the Iraq war and other administration policies scattered across the crowd attempted small acts of protest At the beginning of the speech, University of Michigan student Will Travis and two companions went to the front of a VIP section and turned their backs on Bush. They flashed peace signs and remained with their backs to Bush throughout his oration.
“Hopefully, I made some people think about why I'm here,” Travis said to reporters after the speech ended. “I just want people to know that not everybody is for the president.”
Other nearby protestors — including two men who briefly held up a sign that said “No war” before being escorted out by military personnel and another man who loudly heckled the president, saying “What about the poor, Bush?” — were shouted down by nearby participants. One man seated near an Associated Baptist Press reporter shouted, “God bless Bush!” repeatedly at the heckler.
Bush appealed to religious sensibilities in his argument for spreading freedom around the globe. “From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this Earth has rights and dignity and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth,” he said to sustained applause.
Bush invoked the words of one of his best-known predecessors in arguing for his policy. “The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: 'Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it,'” he said.
Following the speech, Bush embarked on the inaugural parade up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. Although the vast majority of the sidewalk space on the route had been allocated to the Presidential Inaugural Committee, who in turn allocated it to donors and reporters, some protestors were able to get through.
One was Josh Pierce, 34, a member of Washington's First Baptist Church. “I just wanted to do something,” Pierce said, noting that he had been “pretty much a moderate,” politically speaking, prior to the 2004 campaign — but that many of Bush's choices during that campaign and the course of the war in Iraq soured him on the president.
“I think it was dishonest the way that we went to war, and [Bush] just didn't take any responsibility for it — the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction, the fact that our soldiers are dying,” Pierce said, while marching with several thousand other protestors toward the parade route.
Pierce also took issue with the way Bush embraced policies — such as support of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage — he considered homophobic. “The anti-gay stuff really bothers me,” he said. “It's not biblically based at all. It's more emotion-based, hate-based, aimed at excluding, instead of doing what Christians are supposed to — include.”
In contrast to his campaign speeches, Bush touched only very lightly on domestic policy issues during his inaugural address. He mentioned none of the divisive “values” issues that drove much of the most divisive debate during the election.
Bush concluded by calling Americans to embrace his idea of spreading freedom around the globe. “America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof,” he said. “Renewed in our strength — tested, but not weary — we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom. May God bless you, and may he watch over the United States of America.”