Part of me didn't want to listen to President Bush's inaugural address. The feelings from the last election are still a little raw, and it I didn't feel like having seething anger boiling inside of me again.

I have avoided watching or listening to the run-up to the inauguration. Eric Boehlert's "Giving Bush a pass -- again" in Salon today has enough examples of the fawning coverage that make my blood pressure glad I did, such as:

Newsweek's Inauguration Eve cover story this week was equally fawning, insisting that contrary to what readers may have read or suspected, Bush is "hands-on, [is] detail-oriented and hates 'yes' men." He's a commander in chief who "masters details and reads avidly, who chews over his mistakes" and who "digs deep into his briefing books." According to whom? Bush's closest "aides" and "friends," of course.

Newsweek also reported that Bush's natural self-confidence was boosted by his "clear election victory" in November. But as Salon previously noted, in the past 80 years, only three times have presidents been elected with fewer than 300 electoral votes. Bush accounts for two of the three anomalies; in 2000 he won 271 electoral votes, and in 2004 he captured 286. (Jimmy Carter is the third example, with 297.) By way of comparison, Bush's final margin of victory was almost identical to Carter's win over Gerald Ford in 1976, when there was very little discussion of a mandate for the Democrat. Yet to Newsweek's eyes, Bush enjoyed a "clear victory."

But this morning, I decided to listen anyway. I am, after all, an American. Bush won the election, and he is being sworn in as the President. I don't agree with many of his policies, don't like him personally, and don't like many of the people in his administration. But in four years, when a Democrat is being inaugurated, I don't want to be hypocritical towards those who ignore the inauguration because "the Republican should have won."

Listening to the inauguration, I agreed with almost everything the President said. He delivered it well, which I could even tell listening to him on the radio. There was maybe a sentence or two that I cringed at, but the speech did make me proud to be an American.

And I think that might be part of the problem. Will the reality match the rhetoric? I hope so.

Consider this snippet, which I particularly liked:

In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.

(I'll leave aside the subtle reference that will play well with those opposed to abortion rights and go unnoticed by most everyone else.)

When Bush says

Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love.

does he mean to challenge the Republican notion that each person is solely responsible for his or her own station in life and, as such, should not have access to a "safety net" when something bad happens?

When Bush says

[W]e cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.

does he intend to oppose the effort to put bigotry into the Constitution in the form of the anti-gay marriage amendment?

In both of these cases, conservatives will be able to say "No, you misunderstood him." With regard to the talk of neighbors, Bush would prefer to see private charities provide services instead of having protections guaranteed by the government. And since conservatives don't see opposition to gay marriage as a form of bigotry, the President clearly wasn't speaking of that issue.

And that is the problem with this speech. It is easy to agree with because you can hear what you want to hear, putting your own beliefs into the framework that he provides. There were few of the lines spelling out specific policies for which it is easy to feel opposition.

Of course, even with generalities, it is easy enough for the president to oppose them. Remember Bush's first inaugural address? Here's a quote from that one:

The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.

Even Bush supporters can agree that he has acted with arrogance in our foreign policy, exclaiming that nations are "either with us or against us" and plowing ahead with policies without regard for the input of other nations. (Many Bush supporters don't see this as a bad thing.)

I hope that Bush lives up to the lofty ideals that I read into his inaugural address this year. More likely, he will either live up to the lofty ideals that someone else read into his inaugural address--or just ignore his address altogether.

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