Thomas Jefferson's tradition, in Mead's view, "has consistently looked for the least costly and dangerous method of defending American independence, while counseling against attempts to impose American values on other countries." This ain't George W. Bush. In fact, Jeffersonians in the career ranks of the State Department and CIA tried to defeat Bush with well-timed leaks to sympathetic reporters. CIA Director Porter Goss seems determined to get career officers under control. It's not clear whether Condoleezza Rice will do so at State.

 Mead's Wilsonians believe that the United States "has both a moral and a practical duty to spread its values through the world." George W. Bush did not campaign as a Wilsonian in 2000, but he became one after Sept. 11. His continued insistence that freedom is a universal yearning recalls the rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson himself.

 But institutionally, the first Bush term has fallen far short in promoting its values. Few appointees abroad have effectively countered the fashionable anti-Americanism of European elites and media. Efforts to create favorable media outlets in the Arab world have been limited. There has been nothing like the broad-scale creation of pro-American cultural institutions in the early years of the Cold War.

 There seems to be no counterpart in the Islamic world of the Reagan administration's covert programs encouraging peaceful regime change in Eastern Europe. The administration sometimes seems to discourage, more than encourage, the efforts of evangelical Christian and Jewish organizations to spotlight religious persecution of Christians and others.

 In his first term, Bush proved to be a successful Jacksonian and Hamiltonian president. In his second term, will he prove to be a successful Wilsonian, as well?