This chapter's retrospective on "evil." in presidential speeches indicates how Reagan's invocation of evil difers markedly from that of his predecessors as evil becomes an ontological fact. Ontological evil permeates the world, establishing the conditions of existence even as its specificity as an attribute or judgment remains elusive. This elusiveness, in turn, reflects on the moral character of the one willing to confront the truth of evil. Likewise, Bush's invocation of an "axis of evil" is not an empirical claim regarding a political or military alliance among Iran, North Korea, and Iraq. It is also not a statement about September u. Rather, it marks Bush's attempt to tell the United States and the world just what kind of man he is. He is a man of conviction, he is certain, and he knows. Armed with c�rtaint)lj Bush is resolved to fight evil in al its myriad, shifting, evolving manifestations. He wil fight it as possibilit)lj as potential, before its pernicious efects can even be felt. In the face of Bush's knowledge of ontological evil, reasons are at best signs of weakness, lapses in certainty. At ·worst, they are hosts for pernicious evil, a mutant form of liberalism or leftism in which evil hides.
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