Two speeches on American foreign policy were delivered last week by two American secretaries of state. The two women were schooled in international affairs by the same instructor, Czech diplomat and exile Josef Korbel. Their remarks were separated by a matter of hours; the venues, by an ocean. But their ideas were worlds apart, illuminating how much American foreign policy has evolved since the last time a Democrat was in the White House.

Madeleine Albright, lecturing at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs on Monday, was billed as discussing America’s role in the world “on the heels of President Bush’s State of the Union address.” While the Bush administration and democracy advocates the world over were buoyed by the spectacle of millions of Iraqis risking life and limb to cast their first non-sham ballots in more than 35 years, the most Mrs. Albright could concede was that the elections were “encouraging.” She then hastened to remark that “democracy is not an event; it is a process that takes years, centuries.”

“The U.S. should support democracy in the Middle East,” Mrs. Albright added, “and the way to begin is by keeping out of the way.” Why? “The label ‘Made in America’ is not an asset at this moment in history,” explained the woman who lost her credibility as secretary of state by involving herself in the Middle East peace process on the side of the Palestinian Arabs against Israel.

One of her problems with Mr. Bush’s vision seemed to be that America lacks its own bona fides. For 130 years after the birth of the American regime, the secretary noted, some half the population couldn’t vote, and “before American civilization could be built, another civilization had to be pushed aside.” Our “great conflict,” she went on to say, “is not between evil and good, but between evil and ‘hopefully doing the best we can.’ If we doubt that, we need think only of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.”

What a contrast between Mrs. Albright’s self-abasing comments at Columbia and Secretary Rice’s remarks the next day in Paris: a confident, competent justification of American involvement in the world. She – who grew up in the Jim Crow South, who was friend to a little girl blown up in a Birmingham church – knows all about America’s sins, but her optimism is undimmed. “Human imperfections do not discredit democratic ideals; they make them more precious, and they make impatient patriots of our own time work harder to achieve them,” she told her audience in France.

And Ms. Rice doesn’t think America should do the easy thing – to lie low, and “keep out of the way,” while the rest of the world hungers and strives to be free. “We on the right side of freedom’s divide have an obligation to help those unlucky enough to have been born on the wrong side of that divide,” she said. “Human freedom will march ahead, and we must help smooth its way.”

What a difference a day makes. But also, what a difference bitterness and failure can make. Ms. Rice’s foreign policy – her president’s foreign policy – is ascendant. History, and morality, are on their side. The “elites” in academia, in the press, at Turtle Bay, at Brussels, at Washington, even – those who make a living passing off cynicism as wisdom, and indifference as sophistication, and who think both wisdom and sophistication dictate a “Hate America First” philosophy – are not.

Perhaps this is why, when an audience member asked Mrs. Albright about Rwanda during the question session, she responded caustically: “President Clinton and I have apologized for the lack of action on Rwanda. … We actually admitted our mistakes” (unlike President Bush, you see).

Afterward, I asked Mrs. Albright about her own initiative for a community of democratic nations. She said it was an ongoing project, noted that “we did a lot of work on that,” and added that “it’s very important.” Then, seeming to me a bit tense and snippy, she went on: “The Republican administration did not invent democracy.”

True enough, but if the tale of two speeches is any indication, the Republican administration is the one speaking up for it with real enthusiasm. “Time and again in our shared history,” Ms. Rice said in Paris, “Americans and Europeans have enjoyed our greatest successes, for ourselves and for others, when we refused to accept an unacceptable status quo – but instead, put our values to work in the service of freedom.”