What are they saying about the inauguration?

Joe Conason:  "What was notable about George W. Bush's second inaugural speech was how he veered between the desultory and the delusional. ... Like many of his predecessors, Bush clearly believes that on such a formal and solemn occasion, world-historical figures such as he should attempt high-flown and florid phrases that will echo in eternity. Or something like that."

Los Angeles Times editorial:  "...Bush's critics have learned to respect his determination to do what he says he'll do, however much it may contradict the advice of those critics, or reality. ... And Bush's analysis sounds nearly Marxist, with its emphasis on the radicalizing effects of oppression. ... There are reasons to be impressed by Bush's new doctrine. There are also reasons to be very afraid."

Bob Dreyfuss:  "So it's clear from the speech: The next four years will be four more years of Christian jihad."

Duncan Black:  "I'm starting to think that people voted for Bush so that he could make things right, and thus justify their support for him and his little adventures in the first place. But, Bush is going to continue to do things very wrong -- and this inaugural speech was a sign of that."

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Democratic leader:  "Personally, I don't feel much like celebrating. So I'm going to mark the occasion by pledging to do everything in my power to fight the extremist Republicans' destructive agenda."

Doyle McManus: "Bush's embrace of worldwide democracy as his central goal is the latest stage in the steady expansion of a 'Bush Doctrine' that began as a post-Sept. 11 warning that regimes harboring terrorists would be vulnerable to U.S. attack."

Marshall Wittman: "... the eloquence of the President's address was only matched by its disconnectedness to reality. "

Kevin Drum:  "I hope everyone will forgive me for not feeling too inspired today...."

Steve Soto: "It would again come asnews to our citizens that it is the Bush Administration's job to prepare 'our people for the challenges of life in a free society' by blowing up the safety net that has protected our society from the social Darwinism that this Administration clearly wants to foist upon us in the next four years."

Boston Globe editorial:  "Bush's invocation of freedom provided an overarching theme for the speech and for his second term, but it is stretching his credibility to equate the overthrow of foreign tyranny with his plan to partially dismantle Social Security, as Bush did in his speech."

Inaugural protest sign:  "'Yeehaw' is not a foreign policy"

Steve Gilliard:  "I was so happy to see the idiot TV reporters surprised by the massive, live, on TV protests. Not alone sign or two, but walls of signs decrying Bush and his war. So many signs and protests, audible boos could be heard on the TV. They just stumbled and mumbled and couldn't really figure out why so many people booed Bush, tossed eggs and fought with the cops. Then went on to go after the Inagural Balls."

San Francisco Chronicle editorial:  "As he delivered his speech, Iraq is engulfed in violence and uncertainty as elections approach, Osama bin Laden remains at large and there is no sign that Bush's policies have done anything to temper hatred and resentment toward the United States. If anything, it is building." ("Soaring words, sinking policies")

David Neiwert: "Some of my regular commenters have expressed doubt that religiosity like [Bush's] (or that voiced by Clarence Thomas or right-wing theocrats) represents anything new or troubling. I think they're being taken in by the window dressing and not listening to what's really being said."

Peter Wallsten and Edwin Chen, LA Times: "With thousands of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and public opinion polarized over the policies that put them there, Bush offered few hints about whether his doctrine would mean military action against other countries. But directing his remarks to the "rulers of outlaw regimes," the president suggested that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were only the start of a global strategy to spread freedom."

Roy Edroso: "Thursday's grandiloquent speech reflects a notion of the world and of human experience that is, for all its pretended expansiveness, pinched and petty. ...  It is propaganda writ large and in a florid hand, with an eye toward talking points and polling data, to move the speechwriters and columnists whose job is to make much of it."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA):  "I thought he laid out in a succinct way his global strategy and his goal.  The question becomes, I don't see how he can really achieve a lot of this unless America's credibility with democratic and freedom- loving countries is restored. We've lost a lot of credibility. That's a major challenge. I don't think you can install freedom with arrogance."

Juan Cole: "Bush's speech was about bringing liberty to the rest of the world. Let's see if he can first do something to restore to the American public the liberties we enjoyed, as free men and women, until 2001. Let's see if he can bring US government policies back into alignment with the Geneva Conventions and other international law on human rights, to which the US is signatory. Only then would he have earned the right to even think about trying to extend liberty to others."

Robin Cook, former British foreign secretary:  "Inauguration does not do justice to the exuberant celebrations of this week. Coronation would come closer. ... The contrasts between this uninhibited triumphalism and the real world are as wide as the American continent. ...  Lastly there is the biggest contrast of all between the smug complacency of the administration over its electoral victory and the disastrous military failure of its adventure in Iraq. ... Iraq was the flagship project of the Bush administration and has turned into its greatest disaster. Yesterday's jollities cannot conceal the brutal truth that they neither know how to make the occupation succeed nor how to end it without leaving an even worse position behind."