"It was beautiful. It was poetic. Those of you who didn't see it missed a lot," the one-time Clinton adviser said.

The Bush speech articulated "a bold new policy" based on the spread of freedom, he noted – much the same way Kennedy did when he pledged in his address to "pay any price, bear any burden ... to assure the survival and success of liberty."

The White House adviser said Bush's focus on spreading freedom around the globe hit on a fundamental truth: "No democracy ever starts a war of aggression."

"That doesn't mean we stop trading with China immediately," he cautioned. "It doesn't mean we invade Iran. But it does mean that we stand up for the Ukraine, like we did. It does mean we take action in the Afghanistan and Iraq elections, like we did."

Morris said there's already compelling evidence of the power of elections to defeat aggression.

"If you want proof of how effective that is, look at Palestine," he told O'Reilly. "Ever since the elections were held, the terrorists can't get the right time of day."

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, however, was less impressed.

Normally a Bush booster who worked for the president's re-election campaign, Noonan told FNC's "Hannity & Colmes" that some of Bush's inauguration rhetoric was "grating."

"I found the speech today [to be] a rather startling speech ... a big, ambitious speech," she told Alan Colmes. But she warned, "history is going to play out and history is going to compare what really happened with the assertions that were made in this speech."

Noonan added: "I'll be frank, I think some of it went over the top a little bit in regards to what is possible in this world. ... I found it a little grating, in some respects."

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