Oh, the speech? Place me a little on the happier side of Peggy Noonan. The

president called us to higher things, which is what a president is supposed

to do in an inaugural speech. I didn’t see his delivery, but reading

through the speech, I think it’s a good one.

Whether we can actually rise to those higher things — whether events will

allow us the luxury of so doing — is another issue.

On the train back from D.C. Wednesday I read Richard A. Clarke’s piece

“America Attacked: The Sequel” in the Jan/Feb Atlantic. Yeah, yeah, I

know, Richard Clarke…but one thing rang true.

In Clarke’s prognostication, Al Qaeda launches a second wave of terrorist

attacks on our home soil — Las Vegas, theme parks, malls, big-city subways,

cyberspace, etc. All this triggers a big withdrawal from Iraq. “The army

was needed in the subways.” Our Iraq effort dwindles to defense of some

watchful enclaves. “Our goal now is just to prevent Iraq from becoming a

series of terrorist training camps. If the new Iraqi army can’t keep the

peace among the factions, that’s its problem.”

If there is a new wave of terrorist attacks on our home ground, I think

public opinion will indeed force something like this — not Euro-style

appeasement, but a retreat to a more defensive posture, with much less talk

about “bringing democracy” and “helping the Iraqis” (and others).

Inauguration-speech high idealism will, in short, go out the window, if we

are attacked again. Says Clarke. And, even given that this is Clarke

writing, I agree.