Comment on inaugural address ONLY- other readings I'll do later:)

After reading the inaugural address of President Bush, I immediately placed his speech into the deliberative category of rhetoric. While he did look backward to certain events, such as 9/11, the main emphasis was on what America was going to do next. He certainly had a goal in mind for America. The Telos, or end result, of persuading America to take action now is the “ending of tyranny in our world”. As for Kairos, with all of the conflict happening now and with the war and protesting, his speech about aiming for peace could not have come at a better time. He even mentions that pushing for self government for all countries is an “urgent requirement of our nation’s security and the calling of our time”. In terms of Logos, he uses an actual quote from Abraham Lincoln, recalls liberty in terms of the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the GI Bill of Rights, and talks about the past event of 9/11. He uses them all, in some degree or another, as factual evidence to support what he is trying to push, freedom for all. As far as Ethos goes, I believe that the sole fact that he is our President gives much of our nation the ability to believe in his credibility and listen to the words he says as truthful. While many will not agree with me, and while it sounds naïve, there are PLENTY of people out there that will believe anything he says, just because he is the President of the US. I also believe that by demonstrating his knowledge of different acts and bills that have been passed and by quoting President Lincoln, the audience sees that he is knowledgeable about our history and believes he knows what he is doing. I honestly didn’t think he did too well in terms of Pathos. He did mention the soldiers that had given their lives, too briefly in my opinion, so that definitely became emotional for the audience. But not much else, based solely on his words, really grabbed me and made me feel emotional. Back to the speech being deliberative, I think he does a good job of telling America all that needs to be done on our part, in order to spread peace worldwide. He makes the audience realize that we need to be out there taking action to help others who are not as fortunate as us to have a democratic government. He says it is “human choices that move events”. Overall, his speech is encouraging and well written. It made me want to help out the other countries. But I still think that he could have given it a bit more to evoke emotion from the audience.