Bush Tries to Clarify Inaugural Message

President Bush sought Wednesday to calm the tempest stirred by his inauguration speech, insisting that his quest to end tyranny abroad would not prevent him from working toward “practical objectives” with governments that did not live up to American ideals.

At a White House news conference, Bush said he would push foreign leaders to reform, but stopped short of declaring that such reforms would be the foremost goal of U.S. relations with other countries.

“I don’t think foreign policy is an either-or proposition,” Bush said. “I think it is possible, when you’re a nation like the United States, to accomplish both objectives.”

Bush’s remarks were the latest effort by the White House to damp down concerns about the crusading tenor of foreign policy pronouncements in the president’s Jan. 20 inaugural address.

Bush’s assertion that he intended during his second term to “spread freedom around the world” aroused fears -- including among some prominent conservatives -- that he meant to launch an aggressive effort to reshape foreign governments. In the speech, Bush left unanswered the question of how he intended to reach his goal.

Last Friday, a senior White House aide told reporters that Bush’s remarks did not represent a change in policy.

On Sunday, the president’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, made a highly unusual appearance in the White House press room to emphasize that his son’s words did not mean “new aggression or newly asserted military forces.”

And Wednesday, the president sought to clarify his inaugural message.

“I firmly planted the flag of liberty for all to see that the United States of America hears their concerns and believes in their aspirations,” he said at the news conference.

But, he said, progress toward the goal would be gradual -- “the work of generations.”

He said that the United States was “a work in progress” and that in America “all people weren’t treated equally for a century.”

Bush’s address raised questions about whether the president would put new pressure on major powers with human rights records widely considered poor, such as Russia, China, Egypt and Pakistan.

Bush said he had reminded Russian President Vladimir V. Putin of the need to adopt Western values. He said that although he wanted to work with China to disarm North Korea, he also would push the Chinese to reform.

“I will constantly remind them of the benefits of a society that honors their people and respects human rights and human dignity,” he said. In discussions with Beijing, he said, he had brought up concerns about freedom in China expressed by the Dalai Lama and the Roman Catholic Church.

Bush insisted that the speech represented no change in policy, but “a way forward.”

“I think America is at its best when it leads toward an ideal, and certainly a world without tyranny is an ideal world,” he said. “And so I look forward to leading the world in that direction for the next four years.”

Geoffrey Kemp, a foreign policy specialist at the Nixon Center in Washington, said the comments sounded “very sensible, and a necessary corrective to the hyperbole in the inaugural speech.”

Kemp said the criticism from Republicans, including former aides to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, reflected the fact that “traditionally the Republican Party has been wary of crusades that embrace most of the world.... I’ve never seen an inaugural speech that was so provocative to people who normally support [the president].”

Kemp said he had expected that Bush would advance the speech in his State of the Union address, scheduled for Wednesday. “But he obviously thought he needed to do it sooner,” he said.

Ivo H. Daalder, a Brookings Institution scholar, said Bush’s assertion that the speech reflected no change in policy sent the message: “I’m really happy you listened to my words, but don’t believe a word I say.”

But Gary J. Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, a Washington think tank that has supported Bush’s efforts to reform the Middle East, said the criticisms were “overblown,” and Bush’s clarifications did not amount to “walking back the speech.”

Bush was “simply making clear that there’s no magic bullet for foreign policy,” Schmitt said.