01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, January 26, 2005

WASHINGTON

IF YOU TUNED in to C-Span during the inaugural festivities, you might have seen a replay of the 1961 version, and watched and heard John F. Kennedy's famous address.

All eyes, presumably, were on JFK that morning; but I couldn't help watching his predecessor, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Of course, Ike was the forgotten man in that ceremony. Or not so forgotten, since the commentary was full of references to Kennedy's youthful vigor and dynamism -- in contrast, presumably, to the retiring old general. Kennedy himself added to the effect with his image of the torch being passed "to a new generation . . . born in this century." With his tight-fitting cutaway and thick, tousled hair, Kennedy was starkly different in appearance from Eisenhower, who was very bald, slightly stooped, and wrapped in a heavy overcoat and white scarf.

As we know, Eisenhower was decidedly horrified by Kennedy, whom he regarded as callow, and greatly disappointed by Kennedy's election, which he considered a repudiation of his eight years in the White House. But as the good soldier, Eisenhower was conciliatory in defeat, and presided over a transition that was considerably more gracious than the changing of the guard between himself and Harry Truman. During the Sorensonian passages in praise of Kennedy's generation, and implicit criticism of Eisenhower's, Ike stood stoically at attention.

But when Kennedy began talking about paying any price, and bearing any burden, anyplace in the world, in the "long twilight struggle" to defend freedom, Eisenhower looked suddenly surprised and quizzical. He had very nearly the same expression on his face as was seen in the famous photograph of Ike when he was told that Douglas MacArthur had been fired.

The sound of the trumpet summoning us forth, and so on, must have had an interesting effect on Eisenhower. While Kennedy is talking, the worldly-wise general-statesman looks almost pityingly on the young commander-in-chief; he seems to wonder if Kennedy knows what he's getting into. Eisenhower, who chose his battles in the Cold War very deliberately, was fully aware of the circumstances in Vietnam, Laos, Cuba and Berlin, and must have felt like warning his successor to tread carefully.

He did not, and within several months, Kennedy and his whiz kids were up to their elbows in Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam -- with near-disastrous results.

Like most listeners, I was struck by the eloquence and ambition of President Bush's second inaugural address. It was very different, in tone and intent, from his first inaugural speech: Elected without a popular victory, and succeeding an incumbent who had tarnished the office, Bush in 2001 seemed anxious to restore faith in politics and promote good feelings around the world. Nice stuff, to be sure, but nothing to stir the blood.

Now, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, and with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in perspective, a grayer, considerably more confident George W. Bush declared that "the great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations." To some, he seemed to be conjuring up the Kennedy ghosts in a quest to liberate a fractious world. To others, he was parroting the boilerplate rhetoric of American idealism.

Which was it? It was both. It can hardly be news to say that the American republic regards itself as a beacon, a "shining city on a hill," to inspire daughters and sons of liberty around the world. That has been our civic religion, with minor variations, from the time of John Winthrop to Thomas Jefferson to Theodore Roosevelt and onward. Kennedy, after all, said that the "long twilight struggle" would "not be finished in the first hundred days . . . nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."

The difference between 1961 and 2005, however, is experience. Bush's objective in Afghanistan was to show that when tyranny takes the form of terrorism, it must be punished. In Iraq his intention, as I take it, is to demonstrate that freedom is naturally intrinsic, that tyranny can be attacked, and will be assaulted if it stands in the way of a larger objective -- in this instance, a just settlement of the Arab-Israeli struggle.

In that sense, Bush is an advocate, not an evangelist, of freedom. He recognizes that the "long twilight struggle" against terrorism demands the toleration of imperfect regimes -- Pakistan, Russia, China -- and that exhorting the world to embrace freedom involves risk (Taiwan), as well as reward (Ukraine). The point is not that the United States can make impossible things happen, or will lead the charge in a dozen different places, but that American power means certain principles, as well as prosperity and military strength.

Philip Terzian, The Journal's associate editor, writes a column from Washington.