Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said Bush deliberately focused on liberty instead of human rights.

Roth said “It’s easy to say I’m for liberty but difficult to say I’m for human rights when he’s overseeing what we know is a conscious policy of coercive interrogation, including inhuman treatment and sometimes torture.”

The Washington Post noted that some of the administration’s closest allies in the war against terrorism — including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan — are ranked by the State Department as among the worst human rights abusers.

Bush Speech Called “Most Combative” in 50 Years
Julian Borger of the Guardian described the speech as a radical address and “arguably the most combative inauguration speech in 50 years.” Borger writes “Bush nailed his colors once and for all to the neoconservative mast, committing himself to an activist foreign policy.”

Bush spoke shortly after being sworn in by the ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Senator Trent Lott served as the master of ceremonies for the inauguration.