Ward Churchill

I was appalled by Churchill’s “Some People Push Back.” I was offended by many of his words. While some of his comments were indeed true and many of the points he had may have needed to be made. Despite this, I was offended by many of the statements he made and I felt that he did not present them well. First, I felt that his ethos was not well established. While he is a professor and has written several works, he has yet to actually participate in government (as far as one can tell from this essay). Also, his use of foul language tends to decrease his creditability. Also, his degradation of almost all recent American presidents including George Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr, and Johnson does not help his case. I feel that his use of logos was fairly good; however, I feel that if he had presented the logic in a less offensive way, he would have received a better response. His pathos was obviously the majority of the paper and worked fairly well for him. His description of the “dead children” is heart wrenching; however, his discussion of American victims was less than appealing.
Also, Churchill seems to have some difficulty in relating to his audience. He does not seem to realize that criticizing the people he is attempting to effect is not an effective strategy. He refers to the American people as “sheep” and degrades their intelligence (this does not seem a good way to get people to listen to you).
His response to critics was slightly more coherent and appealing. While he does not take back any of his words, he does seem to take back some of the harshness of the words. He seems to turn the points more towards logos than pathos. I felt that his response was much more acceptable and rhetorically effective.