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Bush Sworn In As U.S. President, Recognizes Muslim Americans
WASHINGTON (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - George W. Bush assumed power as the 43rd President of the United States on Saturday, promising to fight for a "just and generous" America with a new politics of civility and personal responsibility.
He becomes only the second son of a U.S. president to assume the nation's highest office.
Also, for the first time in any presidential inauguration address by any president, Bush alluded
to the inclusion of Muslims in American society by referring to mosques, alongside churches and synagogues, in shaping American society in lieu of U.S. citizens depending on the government to do so.
"Government has great responsibilities, for public safety and public health, for civil rights and common schools. Yet compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government. And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer.
"Church and charity, synagogue and mosque, lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and laws," Bush asserted.
Bush, who claimed the White House with a bitterly contested Supreme Court ruling on disputed ballots in Florida, swore with his hand on a Bible used by the country's first president, George Washington, as Chief Justice William Rehnquist administered the oath of office.
In a poignant open-air ritual at the U.S. Capitol enacted on a freezing day, Bush's father, former president George Bush and his predecessor, Bill Clinton, looked on, along with vice-president Al Gore - who Bush defeated in a bitter post-election legal battle.
"I, George Walker Bush, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," Bush said with one hand raised in the simple oath of office.
Bush, whose eyes welled with tears after completing the oath, inherits a political climate left deeply scarred by the prolonged courtroom battle for power.
"As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation. And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit, and ended with grace," he said in a rare reference to the bitter electoral battle.
"Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity," Bush said from a platform below the marble bulk of the U.S. Capitol.
"Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character."
"America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness."
"Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos."
Bush, who calls himself a "compassionate conservative" campaigned for the presidency, promising to serve in the White House with honor and dignity - a reference to the scandal plagued administration of his predecessor.
New First Lady Laura Bush, and the couple's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, beamed as Bush accepted vigorous applause from assembled lawmakers, dignitaries and thousands of onlookers.
His parents, former president George Bush and first lady Barbara Bush, other family members and close friends joined Bush.
"I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow," Bush said in his inaugural address that called for the nation to come together.
In his first speech as U.S. commander-in-chief, Bush declared that "America remains engaged in the world."
"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," he proclaimed.
"We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge," the 43rd U.S. president said. "We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.
"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."
He closed his speech with a call on Americans to renew their national purpose.
"Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today: to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life."
His vice-president, former secretary of defense Dick Cheney, was sworn in minutes before the new president
Scorning the conciliatory rhetoric, thousands of demonstrators, estimated by police to be about 15,000 strong, massed in the U.S. capital Saturday, determined to provide a raucous repudiation of Bush's conservative agenda - and of the manner in which he was elected.
One banner held by anarchists marching through central Washington read, "Hail to the thief" a reference to claims Bush's Republican aides stole the election in Florida.
Some carried signs reading "bastard" and called Bush "the least elected president."
"The election is a sham," said Rose Gonzalez, 25, from Massachusetts. "The supposed democracy is a sham."
A few blocks away, closer to the White House, some 2,000 demonstrators were drumming and chanting to draw attention to other issues, with some calling for an end to sanctions against Iraq, while others demanded an end to Israel's
occupation of Palestine.
Security for Inauguration Day reached unprecedented levels with checkpoints set up around the route of the inaugural parade, and thousands of police, secret service agents and security forces on the streets.
There was also an invasion of Texans, who mobbed the metro lines into the capital proudly showing off cowboy hats and boots, keen to see a favorite son of their state take back the White House for the Republicans.
Bush, a former Texas governor, baseball team owner and oil company executive, will tread in the footsteps of president John Quincy Adams who moved into the White House in 1825, 24 years after the end of the presidency of his father John Adams.
He is avenging Clinton's defeat of his own father President George Bush after a single term in office in 1992.
The new president was expected to get to work immediately to enact his agenda which includes tax cuts, more money for the military and a focus on education.
But his task will be complicated by a restive Congress nominally under Republican control but almost evenly divided between the two parties, which are already jockeying for position ahead of mid-term polls in 2002.
Clinton and wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, were to leave Washington after the inauguration ceremony for their home in upcountry New York.
True to his promise to work till the last hour of his last day in the White House, Clinton issued a list or presidential pardons just before the inauguration ceremony. The list included his brother Roger Clinton, convicted on drugs charges, ex-CIA chief John Deutch and Susan McDougal, a key figure in one the Whitewater scandal.
The transition was sealed as a uniformed military officer, carrying a suitcase known as "the football" that contains launch codes for the country's nuclear weapons, shifted position from behind former president Bill Clinton to Bush's flank.
Text of George W. Bush's inaugural speech
Here is the text of the 15-minute speech delivered Saturday by George W. Bush at his inaugural as the 43rd U.S. president:
The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country. With a simple oath, we affirm old traditions, and make new beginnings. As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our nation. And I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit, and ended with grace.
I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America's leaders have come before me, and so many will follow. We have a place, all of us, in a long story; a story we continue, but whose end we will not see.
It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old. The story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom. The story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer. It is the American story; a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.
The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise: that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born. Americans are called to enact this promise in our lives and in our laws. And though our nation has sometimes halted, and sometimes delayed, we must follow no other course.
Through much of the last century, America's faith in freedom and democracy was a rock in a raging sea. Now it is a seed upon the wind, taking root in many nations. Our democratic faith is more than the creed of our country, it is the inborn hope of our humanity; an ideal we carry but do not own, a trust we bear and pass along. And even after nearly 225 years, we have a long way yet to travel.
While many of our citizens prosper, others doubt the promise - even the justice - of our own country. The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools, and hidden prejudice, and the circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our differences run so deep, it seems we share a continent, but not a country.
We do not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union, is the serious work of leaders and citizens in every generation. And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity.
I know this is within our reach, because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves, who creates us equal in his image. And we are confident in principles that unite and lead us onward.
America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests, and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
Today we affirm a new commitment to live out our nation's promise through civility, courage, compassion and character. America, at its best, matches a commitment to principle with a concern for civility. A civil society demands from each of us good will and respect, fair dealing and forgiveness.
Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small. But the stakes, for America, are never small.
If our country does not lead the cause of freedom, it will not be led. If we do not turn the hearts of children toward knowledge and character, we will lose their gifts and undermine their idealism. If we permit our economy to drift and decline, the vulnerable will suffer most.
We must live up to the calling we share. Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.
America, at its best, is also courageous.
Our national courage has been clear in times of depression and war, when defeating common dangers defined our common good. Now we must choose if the example of our fathers and mothers will inspire us or condemn us.
We must show courage in a time of blessing, by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations. Together, we will reclaim America's schools, before ignorance and apathy claim more young lives. We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent. And we will reduce taxes, to recover the momentum of our economy and reward the effort and enterprise of working Americans. We will build our defenses beyond challenge, lest weakness invite challenge. We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.
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.
America, at its best, is compassionate.
In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault. Abandonment and abuse are not acts of God, they are failures of love. And the proliferation of prisons, however necessary, is no substitute for hope and order in our souls.
Where there is suffering, there is duty. Americans in need are not strangers, they are citizens; not problems, but priorities; and all of us are diminished when any are hopeless.
Government has great responsibilities, for public safety and public health, for civil rights and common schools. Yet compassion is the work of a nation, not just a government. And some needs and hurts are so deep they will only respond to a mentor's touch or a pastor's prayer. Church and charity, synagogue and mosque, lend our communities their humanity, and they will have an honored place in our plans and laws.
Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty. But we can listen to those who do. And 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.
America, at its best, is a place where personal responsibility is valued and expected.
Encouraging responsibility is not a search for scapegoats, it is a call to conscience. And though it requires sacrifice, it brings a deeper fulfillment. We find the fullness of life, not only in options, but in commitments. And we find that children and community are the commitments that set us free.
Our public interest depends on private character; on civic duty and family bonds and basic fairness; on uncounted, unhonored acts of decency, which give direction to our freedom.
Sometimes in life we are called to do great things. But as a saint of our times has said, every day we are called to do small things with great love. The most important tasks of a democracy are done by everyone.
I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility; to pursue the public interest with courage; to speak for greater justice and compassion; to call for responsibility, and try to live it as well. In all these ways, I will bring the values of our history to the care of our times.
What you do is as important as anything government does. I ask you to seek a common good beyond your comfort; to defend needed reforms against easy attacks; to serve your nation, beginning with your neighbor. I ask you to be citizens. Citizens, not spectators. Citizens, not subjects. Responsible citizens, building communities of service and a nation of character.
Americans are generous and strong and decent, not because we believe in ourselves, but because we hold beliefs beyond ourselves. When this spirit of citizenship is missing, no government program can replace it. When this spirit is present, no wrong can stand against it.
After the Declaration of Independence was signed, Virginia statesman John Page wrote to Thomas Jefferson: "We know the Race is not to the swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?"
Much time has passed since Jefferson arrived for his inaugural. The years and changes accumulate. But the themes of this day he would know: our nation's grand story of courage, and its simple dream of dignity.
We are not this story's author, who fills time and eternity with his purpose. Yet his purpose is achieved in our duty; and our duty is fulfilled in service to one another.
Never tiring, never yielding, never finishing, we renew that purpose today: to make our country more just and generous; to affirm the dignity of our lives and every life.
This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.
God bless you all. God bless America.
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