Bush shows his ideas are different from dad's

By SARA FRITZ

Revised January 23, 2001

© St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001

WASHINGTON -- There was more compassion than conservatism in George W. Bush's first speech as president. He not only promised to work with the Democrats, he also borrowed liberally from their lexicon.

"While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise -- even the justice -- of our country," Bush intoned. "The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools, and hidden prejudice and the circumstances of birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country."

It was a speech that almost any Democrat could have delivered and, as such, it set a much different tone than the one his father, George H.W. Bush, the last Republican to serve as president, delivered from the same podium just 12 years ago. It represented an effort not only to bring the country together after a seriously divisive election, but another important step in Bush's effort to reposition the Republican Party.

As part of that effort, Bush clearly sought to reclaim Abraham Lincoln's legacy in race relations and to offer an olive branch to African-Americans, most of whom voted for his Democratic opponent, Al Gore. Less than a minute into the speech, he noted in a brief review of American history that it includes "the story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom."

Bush has frequently characterized himself as a "compassionate conservative" -- a phrase designed to draw a distinction between his views and the more hard-hearted conservative politics that have been the hallmark of the Republican Party since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Under his leadership, Bush said the American people -- collectively and individually -- would begin to play the role of Good Samaritan.

"I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side," he said.

By way of comparison, Bush's father made no direct pledge to remedy poverty and prejudice in his inaugural address. Instead, the former president emphasized a more traditional Republican theme of noblesse oblige. "My friends," the elder President Bush said on Jan. 20, 1989, "we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the measure of our lives. In our hearts, we know what matters. We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account."

There were some similarities between the two Bush inaugural speeches, of course. Like his father, the younger Bush emphasized a need for Americans as individuals to participate in helping those who are less fortunate. While the elder Bush talked about "a thousand points of light," a reference to the proliferation of volunteer charities, his son, who has enjoyed more support from the religious right than his father, focused on faith-based solutions.

"Some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer," the new president declared. "Church and charity, synagogue and mosque, lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and laws."

John F. Kennedy popularized this theme of citizen participation in his 1960 inaugural speech, when he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Like most new presidents, Bush called for bipartisanship. While his father talked about cooperation between the president and Congress, he talked, instead, about bringing people together.

"I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity," the new president declared.

The younger Bush shaped his speech around four words, all beginning with the letter "c': civility, courage, compassion and character. Those words are perhaps more current than the four words his father's speech relied upon: duty, sacrifice, commitment and patriotism. Their choice of words reflected the generational differences between a veteran of World War II and his son, the baby boomer.

Plainly, Bush and his father were responding to very different times, different political challenges. His father took power at the end of the Reagan administration, and his inaugural promise of a "kinder, gentler" administration came in response to criticism that Reagan's policies had betrayed the needs of American's poor.

The younger Bush takes office at a time when Republican strategists realize that their party will be forever in the minority unless they can convince the public they are concerned as much about the welfare of the downtrodden as they are about the interests of the country club set.

Yet while the president sought to draw distinctions between himself and his Republican predecessors, his speech -- like most inaugural addresses -- was intended to inspire more than inform. He devoted only one paragraph to his policy initiatives and punctuated the text with many references to the Creator.

Bush's father, an Episcopalian, opened his inaugural with a prayer of petition for divine guidance. But the son's references to God were more subtle, more poetic.

"We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose," said the younger Bush, a Methodist. Borrowing from Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, he suggested that "an angel rides in the whirlwind" and directs the course of history in the United States.

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