In his second inauguration address, President Bush committed the United States to spreading democracy and freedom throughout the world.

It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture…Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world: All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.

And while Bush spoke of the importance of freedom in the Middle East during his recent eight-day tour of the region, he nevertheless excused political “oppressors” in a failed attempt to win greater backing for a Middle East peace deal and convince America’s Persian Gulf allies to isolate Iran. The president even awarded Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, all of which received a “not free” or “partly free” rating from a recently released Freedom House report, with a $20 billion arms deal and avoided publicly criticizing the regimes’ poor political rights and civil liberties records.

But Bush saved the bulk of his admiration for Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, “an autocratic leader in power since late 1981.”

President Bush lavished praise on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on Wednesday, emphasizing the country’s role in regional security and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while publicly avoiding mention of the government’s actions in jailing or exiling opposition leaders and its severe restrictions on opposition political activities.

Bush’s praise, like the arms deal, undermines his lofty inaugural rhetoric. According to the Freedom in the World 2008 Report, “Egypt received a downward trend arrow due to the security forces’ ruthless suppression of political dissent.”

President Hosni Mubarak postponed municipal elections, fearing a large showing by the Muslim Brotherhood, and extended the 25-year-old Emergency Law despite earlier pledges that it would be replaced with specific antiterrorism legislation. Security services ruthlessly suppressed dissent by political activists who protested the government’s reversals. Extremely limited reforms related to judicial independence and press freedom were enacted for the sole purpose of deflecting criticism and consolidating state control.

As Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh wrote of Bush’s rhetoric,  “Don’t plan a major democracy speech when you know you’re not going to act on it, with not even a symbolic move of any kind to accompany it. There’s a word for this kind of thing. It’s called hypocrisy.”

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