Bush

I thought it was interesting how David chose to break up the criticisms of Bush’s “crisis rhetoric” into three categories: Word Choices (small- “Bushisms”), Audience (meets people at their own level- “dumbing things down”), and Arguments (Bullying). I think he did a good job of explaining how Bush uses these tactics rhetorically in his speeches. He used three speeches, the Social Security Reform speech, one about No Child Left Behind and one about The Iraqi Threat. In the first two, Bush used a balanced combination of logos, ethos and pathos as elements of persuasion. However, the Iraqi Threat speech was primarily pathos-based-- he used almost no logos, and failed to adequately establish his ethos (I guess being the president of the United States gives you credibility on every subject?). I felt like this just goes to show how Bush uses rhetoric to persuade people into following him without knowing all (or any) of the facts. He realizes that if people were presented with straight facts, more people would be against his reasoning behind going to war. This presentation really made me watch political rhetoric more closely. Unless you’re really paying attention to not only what is being said, but (more importantly) what ISN’T being said, it’s easy to fall for the rhetoric of tricky politicians. Basically… before people are allowed to vote, they should be required to take a class on rhetoric =)