July 11, 2003

The Next Chapter of the American Story

By ROGERS M. SMITH

President George W. Bush's Inaugural Address, delivered January 20, 2001, was a perfect example of a "story of peoplehood," an account offered by a leader to define and inspire allegiance to the political community he seeks to lead.

"We have a place, all of us, in a long story -- a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slaveholding society that became a servant of freedom, the