I read GWB's speech to the National Endowment for Democracy and I'm quite impressed.   The speech demonstrates a depth of understanding of both Human Nature and Foreign Affairs that's rarely credited to Bush.   It's so much easier to call him stupid, compare him with Hoover or worse.   I'd consider him a more proper heir to Reaganesque foreign policy than his father:

The roots of our democracy can be traced to England and to its Parliament and so can the roots of this organization. In June of 1982, President Ronald Reagan spoke at Westminster Palace and declared the turning point had arrived in history. He argued that Soviet communism had failed precisely because it did not respect its own people, their creativity, their genius and their rights.

...A number of critics were dismissive of that speech by the president, according to one editorial at the time. It seems hard to be a sophisticated European and also an admirer of Ronald Reagan.

Some observers on both sides of the Atlantic pronounced the speech simplistic and naive and even dangerous.

...As we provided security for whole nations, we also provided inspiration for oppressed peoples. In prison camps, in banned union meetings, in clandestine churches men and women knew that the whole world was not sharing their own nightmare. They knew of at least one place, a bright and hopeful land where freedom was valued and secure. And they prayed that America would not forget them or forget the mission to promote liberty around the world

How End of History! -

Historians will note that in many nations the advance of markets and free enterprise helped to create a middle class that was confident enough to demand their own rights. They will point to the role of technology in frustrating censorship and central control, and marvel at the power of instant communications to spread the truth, the news and courage across borders.

...The success of freedom is not determined by some dialectic of history. By definition, the success of freedom rests upon the choices and the courage of free peoples and upon their willingness to sacrifice.

The whole thing is a A VERY well done speech that lays the clear foreign policy target for the Middle East.   He's a Fukuyaman but with a far bigger stick.  It angers me how many folks simplisticly doubt the power of the underlying idea or the force of Bush's words & just blather on and on that he's stupid or that he lied or that he's a NeoCon puppet.

He probably used a speech writer - I'm sure he did, GWB's verbal skills aren't exactly famous.   But is there any doubt how deeply he believes in these principles?  

Why doesn't this get the press treatment it deserves?    Well, I'm going to blame GWB a bit as well - why the f**k isn't he saying this in an State of the Union or before the UN?  A lesson from communications 101 - getting the message out there often requires repetition;  saying it once at a pretty high brow, elitist organization doesn't quite do it.

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UPDATE: It's almost like Fareed Zakaria read my blog:

Sometimes I think that President Bush’s critics need to put up a sign somewhere in their rooms that reads: “Some things are true even if George W. Bush believes them.” A visceral dislike for the president is boxing many otherwise sensible people into a corner because they cannot bring themselves to agree with anything he says.

How else to explain the churlish reaction among so many Democrats, Europeans and intellectuals to the president’s speech on democracy in the Middle East last week? Whatever the problems—and I’ll get to them—as a speech it stands as one of the most intelligent and eloquent statements by a president in recent memory. (Don’t take my word for it: read it at whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031106-2.html.) If it marks a real shift in strategy, it will go down in history as Bush’s most important speech.

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