The Pepper-Spray President

George Walker Bush's message to the world on Inauguration Day 2005 was a lot like candidate John Kerry's on nomination night at the Democratic National Convention last summer: Help is on the way. Senator Kerry's rescue effort was abysmal on arrival, and even the most fervent believer in the power of the U.S. and resolve of the 43rd President has got to take any promise to deliver the world from evil with a salt deposit the size of Lot's wife.

On a cold day in Washington, Bush delivered a stirring, if somber, speech. And he did so with clarity, forcefulness, and nary a stumble in a performance befitting the leader of the planet's only (for now) superpower. Repressive regimes in Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and elsewhere surely took note that despite a still-running-free Osama bin Laden, bloody setbacks in Iraq, and a going-nowhere exit strategy from that shattered land, Bush did not shrink from the threat of future confrontation (see BW Online, 1/21/05, "Bush Sticks to His Guns").

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http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2005/nf20050121_6679.htm