After George W. Bush delivered his second inaugural address, conservative columnist David Brooks said, on the PBS News Hour, that the speech ensured that Bush would not go down in history as a mediocre president. If the Iraqi elections bring stability and civility to that nation, Bush will be remembered for the Wilsonian idealism of that speech, and the two-fisted pragmatism that managed to spread democracy at the point of a gun. On the other hand, if Iraq continues to spiral into chaos, turning more and more nations against the United States, history will number the Bush presidency among the worst of the worst.

Two days later, I received this message in email:

When have you ever seen so many people have to explain that the Inauguration Speech of a President of the United States did not mean what it said?

Sure enough, the day after the inauguration, White House officials tried to tone down Bush’s bold pledge of “ending tyranny in our world.” As reported in the Washington Post two days after the speech:

White House officials said yesterday that President Bush’s soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy

Daniel Froomkin suggests that the White House has a loose affiliation with reality:

… now comes word from the White House that Bush wasn’t actually setting out a new agenda at all. He was simply describing what his approach has been all along.

And that has invited additional concerns, among them that revisionism may be pushing aside reality-checking in the Bush White House.

E. J. Dionne thinks Bush is inviting cynicism at home and around the world:

Bush’s Freedom Shuffle -- he’s an idealist on Thursday and a realist on Friday -- may come as a relief to the many foreign policy specialists allergic to grand visions. A majority of Americans will be pleased with the elder Bush’s reassurance that the speech does not mean “newly asserted military forces.”

But the Freedom Shuffle is a terrible mistake for Bush, because the greatest barrier to Bush’s success in his second term is the intense cynicism he has inspired about his motives.

Personally, I think the Bush people heard David Brooks’ comments about the eventual verdict of history. They thought about the prospects in Iraq, and in the other places where Bush has staked his reputation, and the nation’s. I think they’re trying now to salvage “mediocrity.”

Update: On a lighter note, Hanna Rosin imagines the day-after revisions of some other bold statements:

“No one needs to go turning over their inheritance to the meek tomorrow morning. This is a generational process, not the work of a couple of years.”

-- Jesus, circa A.D. 33

“ ‘Liberty’ or ‘death’ were just the two choices I happened to mention, but of course there are others.”

-- Patrick Henry, 1775

“Well, it wasn’t really a dream. More like a daydream.”

-- Martin Luther King Jr., 1963