bush continues to flip-flop and backtrack

Not surprisingly! His inaugural speech, besides having a record number of references to "freedom" and "liberty", literally said that he was willing to invade the rest of the world to enforce his brand of "democracy". Of course, everyone in the world realized how absurd and unrealistic that was (despite everyone's certainty that bush would love to invade the entire world!) so since then there have been a number of "explanations" of what he "really" meant. Has there ever been a president that has needed so many excuses, explanations, and rationale for everything that he has said and done?!

From YahooNews :

Reality starts to test Bush's rhetoric on liberty

Ever since President Bush's lyrical inaugural address last week, White House aides, Bush allies and even Bush's father have been scrambling to explain what the president meant - or didn't mean.

At his news conference on Wednesday, Bush himself took a turn. He reiterated his pledge to advance liberty worldwide and wipe tyranny from the globe, but he seemed to scale back expectations. The inaugural speech was not a dramatic policy shift, but "it sets a bold new goal for the future" that will require "the commitment of generations," Bush said.
Bush's clarification came as the costs and difficulties of spreading freedom to just one place - Iraq - continued to mount.
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In his stirring inaugural appeal to American idealism, Bush made only brief and oblique references to these costs. And he didn't directly address the glaring conflict between U.S. aspirations for the world and the pragmatic necessity of dealing with others who don't share those ideals, or give them lip service at best.
Does the policy apply to allies as well as enemies?
Will the U.S. press hard on China, a major trading partner and purchaser of the bonds that finance our government's spiraling deficits?
Or Saudi Arabia, source of 20% of the nation's imported oil?
Or Pakistan, a key ally in the hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden?
Or Russia, a key geostrategic partner whose president, Vladimir Putin, has taken a sharp turn away from democracy?
Bush's answers Wednesday indicated that he knows that the democratic ideal he seeks won't be reached quickly or easily. Asked about the recent arrest of an outspoken lecturer by Mideast ally Jordan, Bush urged Jordan's king to "make sure that democracy continues to advance." He spoke of having raised human-rights issues with the leaders of Russia and China.
He'll have to do a lot more of that, with country after country, if the legacy of liberty he sketched so compellingly is to be more than rhetoric.
Encouraging the spread of freedom and democracy is a noble cause. It is also a long and costly one.