It seems that Reader's Digest has loyal readers inside the White House. No sooner had our July issue reached subscribers than President Bush decided to attend today’s Independence Day festivities at Monticello. Could one of our July stories have inspired the Prez? Maybe so: In a feature article written by yours truly, we highlight 25 wonderful—and absolutely free—places to visit in the United States this summer. The third destination on our list is Thomas Jefferson’s home, which waives its entrance fees every Fourth of July for a swearing-in ceremony of new citizens. And that's where Bush decided last week to spend Independence Day...

I’ve attended Monticello's annual event myself, and can personally attest to its ability to stir the heart. Illegal immigration has become a divisive political issue in this country, but the Monticello commemoration pays homage to legal immigrants. These newly minted Americans take an oath requiring them to do nothing less than to bear arms, if necessary, for the United States. It's quite moving to see people of every age and who hail from every corner of the globe become citizens of our nation, and it serves as a poignant reminder that the backyard barbeques, the baseball games, and the fireworks symbolize something more profound than a simple summer holiday.

Four U.S. presidents have now paid their respects at Jefferson’s mountain on July 4^th (the day, fittingly, that the author of the Declaration of Independence died in his home). Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman made the trek before 1963, when Monticello began the swearing-in festivities; Gerald Ford, and now George W. Bush, have come in the years since this tradition began.

“Those of you taking the oath of citizenship at this ceremony hail from 30 different nations,” Bush said today. “You represent many different ethnicities and races and religions. But you all have one thing in common—and that is a shared love of freedom. This love of liberty is what binds our nation together, and this is the love that makes us all Americans.”

Amen to that.

Ken Burns had been scheduled to speak at this year’s ceremony, but incumbent presidents have a standing invitation to speak at Monticello on The Fourth of July, and the commander-in-chief asserted the prerogative of his position. Although Burns is a Democrat and a confirmed Barack Obama man, he was gracious about being bumped, which is what one would expect from the classy filmmaker. The same cannot be said of some of the president’s critics.

From the moment last week when Bush’s appearance was announced, various left-leaning groups and peace activists signaled that they would protest his presence, and attempt to disrupt the ceremony. Along the presidential motorcade route, as noted today by White House pool correspondent Rick Dunham of the Houston Chronicle, protestors jeered the president and flashed signs reading, “IMPEACH” and “War Criminal.” That’s commonplace when this president goes places.

But later, during the president’s Monticello remarks, organized hecklers repeatedly interrupted the ceremony, yelling the same kinds of things. Some called him a “fascist,” another just screamed out a four letter word at the president. One actually rushed the stage before being intercepted by Secret Service agents. Bush himself sounded relatively unfazed, telling the audience of 3,000, including the 76 adults and two children who were taking the oath of citizenship, “To my fellow citizens to-be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America.”

He's right, but it's still hard to know what to think of today's scene. On the one hand, as the president himself suggested, free speech is what this country is about—and what better day to exercise that Constitutional right than July 4? And in what more fitting a place? Certainly, there is no more important issue than war on which to exercise the First Amendment franchise. And it's a sign of the strength of our democracy that protesters can do it without any real threat to themselves. The new citizens taking the oath today know themselves what the likely consequences would be in many parts of the world to the fool who dared call the nation’s leader a four-letter word at a public ceremony, let alone rush the stage where he was speaking. The fact that the protesters were merely driven to the bottom of the long Monticello driveway and let go is as powerful a statement as anything Bush—or John McCain, or Barack Obama—could say in a speech.

On the other hand, blind hatred seems to have clouded the judgment of so many President Bush’s critics on the Left. Yes, their antipathy for the war in Iraq is genuine. But it’s not always about them. It’s not always about their political views. Born in this country, many into circumstances of privilege, apparently they can’t imagine the joy these new immigrants were experiencing at taking the oath of allegiance to this country, and the honor they felt at being able to do it in a hallowed place and in the presence of the duly elected leader of the world’s most powerful democracy. In other words, it wasn't supposed to be the protesters day. It was the immigrants' time in the sun.

Nonetheless, as John Adams is believed to have muttered on his deathbed, on July 4, 1826: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Actually, Adams outlived Jefferson by a few hours, and so his words were literally incorrect, but they conveyed  a larger truth, which was on display this morning at Monticello—no matter which side you are on. The spirit of Jefferson, the spirit of freedom, does indeed survive.