Since President Abraham Lincoln’s great second inaugural address (May 4th 1865) nearly 150 years ago it was a long existing habit for the President’s inaugural address to present a quite ambiguous demand for diplomacy and transformation of the world. President Bush’s second inaugural address was no different. It set forth President Bush’s ambitious perception of the United States’ role in progressing of liberty, democracy, and freedom worldwide “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” . In spite of persuade his public to adhere to his arguably over ambiguous goal, President George W. Bush uses a rhetoric approach that blends parts of pathos and ethos with precise word choice to create ethically and emotionally charged diction in faiths of uniting the public. He relies also on the assumption that the public shares his thoughts on religion, his perception of America’s ideals of freedom, and the role of God.
Because the assignment of ending tyranny is certainly difficult, President George W. Bush uses pathos and ethos along with meticulously chosen diction to unify his public and establish also common ground, so that they can see the objective from the same point of view and begin working to accomplish it. He started this early in his address by demanding to establish a common history. In the 3rd paragraph he says, “At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together.” He used this technique of implementing a common history several times in the next paragraphs of the inaugural address by referring to “the day of our Foundation,” “the mission that created our Nation,” and “the honorable achievements of our fathers.”
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...sn’t study the Bible or if they have not be predisposed to its diction than the choice to use language so similar to that of the Bible may lead members of the audience to pass President Bush’s words off as idealistic and without value to the issue presented.
President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address does follow in the tradition of most of the Presidents before him and presents an ambiguous view of world transformation and diplomacy. It also avoids the pitfalls of Coolidge’s and Harding’s address which are labeled under isolationism. However with its highly emotional and ethical diction combined with an overly ambiguous vision and heavy reliance on religious views it succumbs to a different label, idealistic.
Works Cited
President Bush's Second Inaugural Address, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4460172, accessed on 17/2/2014
Disapproval, the Confederacy, and slavery were amongst the many crises Abraham Lincoln faced when addressing his First Inaugural speech (Lincoln, First Inaugural, p.37). Above all, Lincoln’s speech was stepping on the boundaries of the southern slave states. Once states began to secede, new territories formed and the disapproval of Lincoln grew. Despite Lincoln’s attempts of unifying the antislavery and confederate views, many whites refused to follow his untraditional beliefs. Lincoln encountered hostile and admirable emotions from the people of the Union and the Confederacy. However, despite his representation of the Union, not everyone agreed with his views.
The United States has a long history of great leaders who, collectively, have possessed an even wider range of religious and political convictions. Perhaps not unexpectedly, their beliefs have often been in conflict with one another, both during coinciding eras, as well as over compared generations. The individual philosophies of William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, with regard to America’s roles in world affairs and foreign diplomacy; are both varied and conflicted. Despite those conflicts however, each leader has left his own legacy behind, in terms of how the U.S. continues to engage in world affairs today.
Rhetorical analysis assignment: President’s Address to the Nation. Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has been calling on all citizens and all nations to support his Middle East policy. Nonetheless, the U.S. has been involved in the Middle East struggle for more than half of the century, wars were waged and citizens were killed.
Bush opens his speech by acknowledging the events of September 11, and those that lost the lives of loved ones and to those that gave their life trying to save others in the buildings. He appeals to those that remain strong by saying that, “These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our country is strong.” His use of pathos helps Bush to calm and control the public in order to keep the country together. This
Throughout the speech, the Former President George W Bush strives to empower Americans by instructing them to remain resolute, but to “go back to [their] lives and routines”. He uses the personal pronoun we and the common pronoun us repeatedly to indicate that the people of the United States, who either saw the event on television or experienced this event firsthand, were and still are involved in this national tragedy. He implements this emotional appeal into his speech to involve all Americans--people living in the United States of America, regardless of their ethnicity, race, or culture, and to acknowledge that the American people have endured this together, and that they will continue to advance after this event with stronger resolve, stronger than ever. In addition, he implements personification to motivate and empower the American people. “Our nation, this generation, will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future” (Bush, 2001). “This generation”, again a synonym for the American people, with its unwavering resolve, will fight for its freedom persistently. He intimates that the future of America and of democratic freedom is in the hands of the American people: that the American people have the power to control their fate. The next sentence leads into America’s “philanthropically” democratic nature: “We will rally the world to this cause, by our efforts and by our courage” (Bush, 2001). This statement has been followed up by action only a few years later, when the United States intervened in the Iraqi War, Libyan Revolution, and even more civil wars to ensure the freedom of citizens from dictatorships, which in Islāmic nations, were militant groups, like the Hamas and Taliban. Lastly, the president utilized anaphora, specifically a tripartite structure, by affirming that the American people “will not tire”, “will not falter”, and “will not fail”. He implies that the American people will relentlessly fight for the worldwide establishment of peace and democratic institutions, a promise which America has kept even in the face of its own national crisis.
Throughout George W. Bush's political career he has implored the use of Aristotle's tripod, which we like to call it. This tripod is a rhetoric which implies that persuasion relies on three things, which are ethos, pathos, and logos. Logos is devoted solely to logic and reason. While on the other hand, pathos deals with attitudes and beliefs. Perhaps the most important one which pertains to George W. Bush is something called ethos, that is to say the branch of the tripod which deals with the personal strengths of the speaker and most importantly his character. Throughout his political journey he has showed the use of pathos, logos, and ethos time and time again, but the one of which he is commonly known for is ethos. The instances in which he has demonstrated them are countless, but I will recall but three. The first event took place on the day of September 14, 2001 at 'Ground Zero', three days after the attack of the World Trade Centers. The third instance was on September 20, 2001 during his Address to a Joint Session of Congress. Lastly, was the State of the Union Address in Washington D.C. Which was held on January 29, 2002.
President George W. Bush is notorious for horrible public speaking, tripping over his words and making silly mistakes are not uncommon in President Bush’s speeches. When 9/11 struck the heart of America we turned to President Bush to guide us back to the path of calm and reason. The American population tends to lean on our President in time of tragedy to serve as a system of support. Instantly after the World Trade Center buildings were attacked President Bush addressed the nation on live television. Bush used neo-Aristotelian tactics: ethos, pathos, and logos to instate a sense of patriotism, argue that America will recover from this tragedy and bring justice to our nation.
Nationwide, it is known that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the one to serve the longest time that any President has ever done so before and he was great at what he accomplished. Roosevelt was like a “grandparent” to the American people with the way that he would speak to them, acknowledge them, and explain what was going on in the world to them (Franklin, American). Each time that Franklin was elected, he had to give the nation an inaugural speech, each president does. However, his second, third, and fourth speeches all related to the topic of what he was going to change in his upcoming presidency compared to the courses of action he had taken in previous events. Within his Second Inaugural Speech, Franklin D. Roosevelt describes to the American
In 1981, former president Ronald Reagan was inaugurated into office and just a couple days ago current president Donald Trump was inaugurated into office. When a president is inaugurated into house, they generally give an inaugural speech about what they will and can do for America. In Ronald Reagan’s inaugural address, he shares his thoughts about America and plans to come. Using different literary devices Ronald Reagan characterizes America as a broken country but, by using hard work and effort, America can truly be great.
George Washington, the first president of the United States, had written a very important historical speech and document towards the end of his time in office. He had written the Farewell address which focused on helping America understand the importance of preserving unity, acknowledging the rise of political parties forming, strengthening religion and morality, and he stated his position on American foreign policy. He addressed these ideas with strong tone and used incredible amount of dictions that strengthens his tone as well as representing his appeal to ethos to a strong degree. However, today’s society seemed to forget Washington’s position on foreign policy and has created a new form of the policy. But nonetheless as time grew, change occurs. In today’s society Washington’s foreign policy would include many positive and negative manifestations, but it is still a speech and document that will always apply to America.
Because of the controversial issues surrounding President G.W. Bush before and during the time of his reelection, the acceptance speech that he delivered is an important piece of literature to study. This diplomatic speech is a piece of rhetorical contribution because the motives and meanings behind any President’s speech is significant to us as citizens of the United States of America. It further warrants our attention because if the audience is able to comprehend the inner meanings and motives behind a presidential speech, then they will eventually be able to differentiate the actual stances and platforms of future presidential candidates and nominees.
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