My class at the Kennedy School is examining liberal theories
of international politics this week, and the policy issue we'll be discussing
is the question of democracy promotion. One of the assigned readings is former President George W. Bush's 2nd
Inaugural Address. As you'll
probably remember, the address was
a soaring anthem to virtues of liberty and America's commitment to promoting it
around the world. Some of the its
choicer lines included:
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on
the success of liberty in other lands."
"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now
one."
"It is the policy of the United States to 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."
"The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated
work of generations."
It would be easy to pick the speech apart, of
course, or to
point out that Bush's lofty declarations about "America's belief in
human dignity" were at odds with the torture regime that he oversaw as president. It was also the kind of speech that
tends to make even America's friends overseas nervous, as they wonder what new crusades
the United States might contemplating.
But that's not the point I want to make today. As I read it over preparing for class,
I had an odd thought: what if Barack
Obama gave the same speech? How would Americans react, and how would foreign audiences perceive
it? I read it again, and
imagined Obama's voice and cadences uttering the same lines. And you know what?
It read a lot better that way. Try it yourself and see. (If you want to make this hypothetical easier to imagine, throw in the
phrase "Make no mistake" once or twice).
I draw three rather obvious conclusions from this
exercise. First, when you like a
political leader, you'll tend to like what he or she says no matter what the
actual words are. Conversely, if
you've already decided you don't like someone, there's little they could do to
convince you. Second,
liberal
values are deeply infused into American political culture, which is why
either Bush or Obama could use a lot of the same phrases and invoke the
same sweeping
language and get a lot of heads to nod in assent.
Third, as long as the United States is very, very powerful, there will
be a strong outward thrust to its foreign policy, even when vital interests
aren't at stake and even when meddling abroad could make things worse rather
than better.
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
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