Bush: Dems not unpatriotic, just wrong on Iraq

CNN ^ | 11/03/2006 | CNN

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

My sentiments are expressed in my tagline.

[HoosierHawk]

That's good.

[RoadTest]

This is just election talk. The Dems are traitors and are working together from inside America to bring us down.

They are useful idiots of the Kremlin and Iran, of Saudi Arabia and Hizbollah, of Hamas and al Qaeda. They are wicked people from Hell, destined for Hell, to put it tactfully.

Teddy Roosevelt or George Washington, if they presided today, would have lined them all up before a firing squad. They hadn't heard of "Political Correctness". All they knew was patriotism, honor and courage in the face of adversity.

[bushfamfan]

That's why Duncan Hunter needs to be President.

[proxy_user]

"I think this is the most frustrating thing about President Bush. These are the lies he tells that trouble me the most.

I think you do not understand the simple rhetorical tropes used by orators since the time of the Greeks and Romans.

What Bush is using is one of the commonest techniques. His purpose is to make the listener think 'what a wimp! of course they're traitors'. By starting the audience to thinking in reaction to what he is saying, rather than baldly stating what he intends the audience to conclude, he moves them to action more effectively.

That's the idea of classical rhetoric.

[Unmarked Package]

"By starting the audience to thinking in reaction to what he is saying, rather than baldly stating what he intends the audience to conclude, he moves them to action more effectively."

That is a very interesting observation and you could be right about President Bush's purpose for bringing up the Democrats and patriotism in his speeches.

My favorite example of the technique is Mark Antony's famous oration at the funeral for Caesar from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Mark Antony begins with the famous line to deflect the Roman mob from his true purpose, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." Throughout his speech, Antony states, "Brutus is an honorable man". Nevertheless, by the end of the speech the mob loves Caesar and wants to tear apart Brutus.

Perhaps President Bush's faint compliment holding that Democrats aren't unpatriotic is meant to have the same effect on his audience as Mark Antony's secretly sarcastic praise, "Brutus is an honorable man."

After President Bush finishes his stump speeches across the nation, I hope the majority of American voters next week have the same opinion of Democrats that the Roman mob held for Brutus.