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President Bushs Enthymeme of EvilThe Amalgamation of 9/11, Iraq, and Moral ValuesNorth Carolina State University Ted Windts description of presidential crisis rhetoric helps explain the successes and the difficulties of President Bushs war on terror. Immediately after the attacks, the president moved rhetorically to provide reassurance and to delegate policy direction. But President Bushs rhetorical transformation of a faceless cowards attack on our country into evils attack on everything good and proper in the world prepared us to respond against enemies beyond "those responsible for these attacks" even as his top advisors warned against doing so. The devil-angel melodrama provided the dramatistic proof Windt described, and when the president cast it in the form of a jeremiad, it reconciled contradictions and complicated counterargument and deliberation.
Key Words: 9/11 Bush jeremiad Kerry
American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 49, No. 1,
32-47 (2005) |
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