Selective Editing

So much about the current US presidency has been about lies, trickery, misinformation, propaganda, ignorance, cronyism, lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and, well, outright crimes by the dozens. They have treated the American people as idiots and, well, much of America has proven them right. The lack of democratic spirit in the administration's approach is profound. I don't think many people yet understand how deep the attack on democracy by this administration runs. We tend to spend much more time on specific instances - the wars, FISA and other forms of domestic spying, pretty much every policy proposed by the administration....

I'm not much for founding father worship (to treat them as final authorities belies the democratic spirit, not to mention Jefferson's and Madison's own thoughts on democratic experimentalism). But you would expect a president to be faithful to the words of Jefferson. Not this president...

Here's the president's citation from Jefferson in his speech at Monticello on July 4:

In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, "May it be to the world, what I believe it will be -- to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all -- the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government."

Here's the original:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

The former is Bush's ideological version of what is otherwise a typically anti-authoritarian statement by Jefferson, a concern that dominated traditional liberal political thought. Bush excludes that part.