Misreading the coverage

Former White House speech writing quarterback Peggy Noonan, doing play-by-play on yesterday's festivities, thought she saw Team Bush humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic while they lined up to blitz the tyrants of the world.

"Way too much God" and not nearly enough nuance, Noonan said of the Inaugural Address she did not write. And because "the world is not heaven," we ought not to act as though God had deputized us to end tyranny, lest Bushian ambition leave America vulnerable to the long bomb from Team Tyrant.

But Noonan misread the play: Team Bush isn't going to blitz tyranny in its second-term foreign policy. Far from crowding the line of scrimmage, the Bush administration dropped back into pass coverage.

Per James Taranto, "those who fault Bush for an excess of idealism, or an insufficiency of realism, are not grappling with the conceptual breakthrough of his speech, which is to declare the idealism-realism dichotomy a false choice." Per Orrin Judd, "Ms. Noonan makes two fairly elementary mistakes here: first, she underestimates how close we are to realizing the end of tyranny," and second, ending tyranny won't mean creating heaven on earth because "folks who are free will generally have little desire to do what they ought."

Let me wring a few more yards from the football metaphor. Noonan heard the bravado:

From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth...Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery...By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well -- a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

But she missed the restraint:

Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way...All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you...

Translation (by way of the storied American football tradition):

Anyone courageous enough to run deep routes against Team Tyranny will get pointers from America on how to score, because we know what the end zone looks like. We'll run drills and watch game films with y'all. You want, we'll even let you borrow some linemen to spring a few blocks for your running backs.

But we're not the team of destiny ( "God moves and chooses as he wills," not as we tell him to), and we ain't here to do the heavy lifting by ourselves. You put your own game face on, and grind out your own yardage. The good news is that God gave you a game face, and it's as good as anybody else's.

Don't let it mess your mind if we pray before and after the game. We need the help. Just keepin' it real, y'all.

UPDATE, January 22: Joseph Bottum gets it. So does science fiction writer Dafydd ab Hugh.