Washington prepares for inauguration

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will spend 17 minutes sketching overarching goals for his second term Thursday even as debate still swirls over how he fulfilled promises made in his first inaugural address.\nFormer President George H.W. Bush gave his son an "A" for the Inauguration Day speech he delivered in a bone-chilling drizzle four years ago. The president's critics, however, still are challenging the first-term actions that grew out of that address.\nSeasoned by two wars and a terror attack that ravaged symbols of American power, the Texas governor who catapulted to power after a hair's-breadth election victory in 2000 feels emboldened by his re-election.\nMidway through his presidency, though, Bush's job approval ratings are in the high 40s or low 50s. That's as poor a rating at the start of a second term as any re-elected president's in more than 50 years. With deep deficits, a lackluster job market, no exit strategy from Iraq and skepticism of the United States abroad, Democrats say they will be listening for humility in Bush's speech.\nBush was humble in his first inaugural address when he said, "We'll show purpose without arrogance."\nNevertheless, that's not the impression Bush has conveyed around the world. Since the United States led the mission to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein with relatively little international support, the president's reputation in some countries, including many in Europe, is one of brashness and inflexibility.\nBush's next secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, promises to undertake a major foray into public relations across the globe. "The time for diplomacy is now," she said Tuesday during her confirmation hearing in the Senate. The time for diplomacy is "long overdue," retorted Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.\nSome major issues Bush raised in his 2000 inauguration speech:\n•Education: "Together we will reclaim America's schools," Bush said.\nWhile Bush pushed through Congress the most demanding education law in a generation, education leaders remain frustrated over its requirements, said by many to have been enacted without offering the money to pay for them. Many Democrats who supported it criticize what they call lackluster spending and enforcement under Bush's leadership. Members of both parties say some parts of the law need work, including the way school progress is measured. Bush not only defends the law but wants to expand some of it's testing requirements to high schools.\n• Weapons: The president said he would "confront weapons of mass destruction so a new century is spared new horrors."\nBush says it was worth it to sacrifice U.S. troops and billions of dollars to overthrow brutal regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. So far, more than 1,350 have died in Iraq alone since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, justified largely by the administration's assurances that Saddam had and was willing to use weapons of mass destruction. The White House acknowledged just last week that it has stopped trying to find such weapons. Some foreign policy experts, meanwhile, contend the war in Iraq took Bush's eye off more immediate threats from North Korea and Iran, where nuclear tensions continue to grow.\n• Taxes: Bush pledged to reduce taxes to "recover the momentum of our economy."\nHe muscled tax cuts through Congress, but budget surpluses long since have disappeared and deficits are soaring. Although the economy's recovery is firmly rooted, businesses still retain caution, one reason they haven't gone on a hiring spree.\n• Social Security: "We will reform Social Security," Bush said, yet the issue gained little traction in his first term.\nThe president says Social Security needs to be partly privatized or "the system will be flat broke, bankrupt" by the time Americans in the 20s reach retirement age. The president wants to let younger workers invest part of their payroll taxes in private investment accounts. If nothing is done, the nation's 20-somethings won't get government retirement checks, Bush says. Democrats insist Bush is manufacturing a crisis, and the system's shortcomings can be fixed with less drastic measures.\n"He's going to need some Democratic support to get things done that he wants to do, and the inaugural address is a cost-free time to do it," says Roderick P. Hart, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin who has written extensively about presidential communications. "If he chooses not to, it's a dangerous oversight."\nThe White House says Bush has reached out to Democratic lawmakers in Congress and will do so again in his second term.\n"We certainly came together to move forward in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, to take significant steps to win the war on terrorism and protect the homeland," White House press secretary Scott McAllen said Tuesday. "This is a week when the president will talk about the importance of coming together to work together to achieve big things."\nBush needs at least to appear to be attempting reconciliation in his speech, says Wayne Fields, a specialist on political rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis.\n"But with more and more money being spent to win, inaugurations have become more a celebration of victory without a conciliatory tone," Fields says.\n"In this election, the right wing has a sense that they should spike the ball in the end zone"