O'Reilly Upended by Rhetorical Judo

Bill “Papa Bear” O’Reilly used formidable one-two combination of name-calling and straw man argumentation when he suggested that the man who traveled to Europe after being diagnosed with TB was acting in line with “secular progressive” values. According to O’Reilly, secular progressives "put themselves above all others. That philosophy says, 'Me first, then I'll worry about you,'" while "traditional-values people put others on a par with themselves."

Who “secular progressives” are isn’t clear. It’s simply a term O’Reilly means to be pejorative (name-calling). The way to make it pejorative is to associate it with yucky things, such as selfishness. So O’Reilly constructs a fictional entity called “secular progressives” who hold the beliefs he attributes to them (the classic "straw man" fallacy).

Not only does this allow him to turn a specific incident in to a commentary on a huge group of people whose politics he disagrees with (something we’ve seen plenty of recently, most notably with the Virginia Tech shootings), but it helps solidify the bogeyman of the “secular progressive,” making it a more potent name to call perceived enemies in the future.

There are two possible lines of critique/response one could offer to this attack. The simplest is to argue directly against O’Reilly’s assertions and say that people who identify themselves as secular and/or progressive don’t hold the positions O’Reilly attributes to them.

A more effective way might be to flow with O’Reilly’s attack and ask him (and those who buy his argument) to identify the “secular progressives” he’s talking about. Certainly any thinking person is against people recklessly endangering others—let’s identify those who aren’t so that we can appropriately respond to them.

My suspicion is that this would result in lots of hemming and hawing without a lot of specifics. Should O’Reilly or his ideological playmates name the groups who are most often associated with “secular progressive” politics (feminists, environmentalists, people in favor of multi-culturalism, people against institutionalized prayer in schools, etc.), it’s easy enough to say, “But wait, these are groups that conservatives usually criticize for paying undo attention to social ‘rights’ at the expense of individual freedom. Doesn’t this contradict the premise of your comments about the guy with TB?”

In fact, one can easily turn O’Reilly’s attack back on him by granting his premise: it’s bad to put individual desires ahead of the collective good. Fine. After chastising Mr. TB, perhaps we should continue by going after heads of corporations who pollute the environment to make a bigger profit. Maybe we need to go after people who insist they have a sacred right to own semi-automatic weapons despite the fact that guns kill thousands of Americans every year. Let’s attack those who want tax cuts for themselves at the cost of astronomical debt for future generations. Let’s go after those who oppose universal health care. And the list can go on an on and on.

Rhetorically, it’s often best to simply grant the premise of an argument and ask the one making the argument to follow it through. When the argument is as dopey as what we see from O’Reilly, the attack trips over its own feet without getting into a battle of accusations.

Rhetoric on the Radio

On NPR this weekend, the show "American Weekend" had a story on the tactics of political rhetoric, complete with specific examples of rhetorical figures from American political speeches and discussing the origins of rhetoric in ancient Athens. You can listen to the show online. The webpage also has links to some rhetoric-related websites, including one that illustrates a large number of rhetorical figures through audio examples from American political speeches.


It's worth a listen.

Some questions:

What do you think about the characterization of ancient Athens in the piece, particularly in its alleged difference from contemporary America vis-a-vis rhetoric?

Republican pollster and spinmeister Frank Luntz is interviewed in the piece. Is what he does "rhetoric?" If so, is it good rhetoric? Bad rhetoric? Good rhetoric used for bad purposes?

At times, it seemed to me the piece suggested that "rhetoric" as it was defined in this context is a practice of putting style before substance and persuading people in at least as semi-underhanded way. How do you think rhetoric came across in this piece?

The Duke Lacrosse Case: An Idelogical Critique

The decision yesterday to drop all charges against the three Duke lacrosse players accused (at least initially) of raping a woman who was performing as an exotic dancer at a team party has brought up one of the ongoing questions in my mind about this case: why did this issue become politicized in the way it did?

In this post, I offer one take on this question through the use of ideological criticism.

Ideological rhetorical criticism focuses on the ways power is created, maintained, used, and abused in society, and the ways in which language is used in these processes.

Such critical approaches would include feminist, Marxist, and postcolonial criticism, although ideological criticism need not fall into any of these categories.

Part of the role of the ideological critic is to use criticism to advance a social or political cause through questioning and investigating how language is used by power structures to conceal and maintain themselves. In other words, ideological critics tend to wear their policial hearts on their sleeve.

Sounds good to me.

One of the odd things about the discourse surrounding the Duke Lacrosse case that struck me early on was the extent to which conservative public voices came to the defense of the accused. Over a year ago, Rush Limbaugh referred to the alleged victim as (wait for it) a “ho,” adding:

I just, I'm looking at this case down there at Duke, [caller], and it's --
there's some things about it, some inconsistencies. You've got some timeline
differentiations and matriculations and, and so forth.

Several months ago, Glenn Beck referred to what was happening to the accused as a “lynching without the rope.”

With the announcement that all charges were dropped, many conservative voices in the blogosphere spoke almost jubilantly about this as if it were a political victory, and added to this personal attacks on the alleged victim.

Posting a photo of the accuser, the blog “Insignificant Thoughts” opined:

Make sure you make note of the woman in the picture. You’ll never see her again.
She’ll never be questioned. She’ll never be criticized. We’ll never hear from
her again. She wasted more than a year with her lies and almost destroyed three
innocent lives. I seriously doubt anyone will press charges, and we’ll now be
subjected to numerous lectures on how this lying piece of garbage being called
out for what she is will stop women who really are victims of sexual assaults
from coming forward, the assumption being that if these three guys were
convicted, innocent or not, we’d be better off.

The sentiment was similar over at “SisterToldjah”:

I’m hoping that the three accused players will sue the state and/or Mike Nifong
for the hardships they’ve suffered since being falsely accused and made out to
be guilty by Nifong himself in the early days of the ‘investigation.’ Because
it’s my feeling that in this case, justice has not been served - for the real
victims here: the three lacrosse players, whose names were dragged through the
mud thanks to a lying stripper and a deceptive attorney who wanted to get
re-elected even if it meant ruining three young lives in the process.

And at “Betsy’s Page,” the accused were lauded for their character:

We often mouth aphorisms about learning from adversity, but these three young
men have really demonstrated that they have indeed done so. Sadly, I expect that
we won't see any such demonstration of character from all those in the media and
among those in academia, particularly at Duke University itself, for their rush to judgment. A distressingly large number of professors at the university acted as if the players were guilty simply because an accusation had been made and the accuser
was a poor black woman and they were white well-to-do athletes.

This is just a smattering of what the celebratory mood seen in much of the conservative prattle-sphere.


In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with these sentiments. When the system works to correct a wrong—even (and perhaps especially) one it’s implicated in itself—that’s something we should celebrate, to say nothing of being thankful that our justice system puts the burden on the state to prove guilt. Yes, it’s a terrible thing when innocent people are unjustly accused, and it’s a wonderful thing when the system works and undoes that wrong.

So, what’s at issue? For me, it’s best summed up in another post from a popular conservative blog, “Mr. Minority”. MM poses the rhetorical question:

As Fred Barnes said on Brit Humes show last night, how many other times has this
type of action against the innocent happened?

Well, MM, a great many times. Is it common for this to happen to affluent, white, educated men? Probably not. But unjust accusations against the innocent? All the time, my man.

Exhibit A: Guantanamo Bay.

And this is where the issue becomes interesting from a rhetorical point of view. The conservative concern with the rights of the accused, outrage at false accusations, and glee at the dropping of unjust charges is a jarringly juxtaposed with the rhetoric from many of these same mouths when it comes to the legal system for all.

How many times are liberal groups (e.g., the ACLU) lambasted for “coddling criminals” or putting “the rights of the crook ahead of the rights of victims” for raising the same issues that conservatives did in the Duke case? When people were getting tortured at Abu Ghraib, many of them completely innocent of any crime, how often did conservatives attack anyone who voiced the least concern about issues of justice as “anti-American” or “terrorist sympathizers?”

In short, conservative concern for the rights of the accused seems oddly sporadic, depending more on who the accused is than the principle itself.

Now, the reverse can be said of liberal/progressives. Many on the left were quick to support the accuser in this case and bemoaned the culture of privilege that they felt led a gang of simian preppies to sexually maul this poor woman.

If we just wanted to throw stones, we could just say “a plague on both your houses” and move on. But there are some important issues here.

First, why would those on the left tend to side with the accused when they (as those on the right observe) profess a deep concern with the rights of individuals who are accused by the state of wrongdoing?

The answer, I think, lies in the fact that what underlies liberal concern with the rights of the accused is a broader concern with the right of individuals in the face of power structures. Such powers are most obviously seen in the government (given its unique ability to punish individual citizens legally), but it doesn’t end there. Among other power structures are the “holy trinity” of social forces: race, class, and gender inequalities.

Seen in this light, the liberal tendency to side with the accuser seems less out of character. Yes, as the accuser, she is on the side of the state and is invoking its might to punish individuals. But she herself exists at the business end of the hegemonic stick, as a poor woman of color.

A radical feminist critique of the situation might suggest that, regardless of what did or didn’t happen at that lacrosse party, the woman in question *had been* violated. Wasn’t it her position in society that drove her to trade on her sexuality for monetary survival? In terms of power relations, how different is what happened at Durham different from the plantation master using his chattel to satisfy his libidinal longings?

I wouldn’t go that far because it dehumanizes everyone involved, making them into allegorical characters. From what I’ve heard, the guys on the lacrosse team tended to be assholes, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to be saddled with the guilt of all oppressors past and present.

On the other hand, one needn’t use hyperbole to understand that the woman in this case is someone who stood in an inferior power relation to those whom she accused in many ways. If a hallmark of liberalism is concern for protecting the individual from unfair consequences of arbitrary power, then one can understand the tendency of those on the left to find their sympathies inclined toward the accuser.

There’s actually a fair amount of overlap between liberals and conservatives (at least those of a certain stripe) on this issue. In their more libertarian incarnations, conservatives look on government’s ability to victimize and control the individual with suspicion. As a result, you find alliances among those on the left and right on issues such as the Patriot Act, which both groups see as a potentially dangerous abuse of hegemonic power structures against the individual.

Where conservatives and liberals part ways is on the question of what constitutes a “hegemonic power structure.” Liberals see these at work in the machinations of racism, sexism, class, and unchecked corporate power. All are examples of unwarranted power held by some citizens at the expense of others.

Conservatives, on the other hand, largely dismiss these, or at least rate them as of little concern compared with governmental power. For example, they tend to see class as a side effect of the free market—a result of choices made by the individual. In a free market, the individual can make choices that allow her or him recreate their class identity. To suggest that an individual is victimized by such a power structure is anathema. Worse, it is an open challenge to what they see as a valid and legitimate method of dispersing power and wealth.

And this is why we have conservatives so clearly taking the side of the accused in this case. If the apparent liberal flip-flop in this particular instance is based on the deeper philosophical concerns liberals have about power relationships and the individual, so is the conservative flip-flop.

What I mean is that conservatives are generally supportive of existing power structures and suspicious of those who challenge their legitimacy. Just as liberals sided with the accuser largely because of the fact that she is, in many ways, at the low end of the power hierarchies, conservatives side with the accused largely because of the fact that they are, in many ways, at the top of the power hierarchies—power hierarchies that in general benefit conservatives, or which are at least philosophically endorsed by them.

So the accuser and accused *do* end up becoming allegorical characters in a socio-political drama in the rhetoric of both sides, with the accuser standing in for those forces thought to challenge or subvert what conservatives consider the natural and rightful order of things, while the accused represent those who’ve justly reached the top of that order through their (or their ancestors’) abilities.

Liberals see it the other way, with the accuser representing those who have long been silenced, abused, violated, and kept down through the self-interested exercise of power by those who don’t necessarily deserve it (e.g., rich white-boy lacrosse players).

Both ways of framing the situation risk jettisoning the specific facts in favor of ideology, and confusing the outcome of a specific case with a win or loss for their particular set of values.

But to put my own ideological cards on the table (and that comes with the territory of doing ideological criticism), if one is faced with a choice of a political philosophy that seeks to constantly question how and why those with power exercise it over those who don’t, and one that seeks to defend those power structures to such an extent that it only recognizes the dangers of such structures when they turn on themselves, I think the choice is clear.




Questions:

Why did Limbaugh get away with calling the accuser a “ho” over a year ago, but Imus, in a less venomous use of the term, got his hat handed to him?

Should the accuser’s name/photo be used openly by the press (as it has on the web already)? Does this depend on whether it can be proved that her accusations were knowingly false and malicious? (The authorities in Durham claim that it’s possible that she in fact believed the various versions she told them, despite the fact that they weren’t consistent).
What other reasons are there for the politicization of this issue along liberal/conservative lines? What am I missing or wrong about? What else can be said?

Semiotic Clouds

A guy by the name of Juri Lotman, an early film theorist, came up with the idea of the “semiotic aura.” Like many academic terms, it’s a fancy word for something we all have a sense of already from our own experience, but gives it a specific name.

“Semiotic aura” refers to the way in which actors who appear in movies bring their “persona” from previous roles to each new movie they appear in. That is, even if Sylvester Stallone appears in a film adaptation of Krapp’s Last Tape, he still brings with him associations the audience has of him as Rocky (and Rambo, etc.) and these will color the meaning of his performance in the new movie, no matter what he does.

The “semiotic aura” is something basically of the actor’s own creation, given choices of roles and performances. I think there’s something here that applies to Don Imus that helps explain both why he’s popular and why his most recent excursion into racist rhetoric has drawn the attention and ire it has.

But in the case of Imus, his public persona isn’t entirely a creation of himself. Rather, it owes a lot to other people’s willingness to be publicly associated with him and to lend their own cache to him.

I suggest the term “semiotic cloud” as a reference to those persons and organizations that, in their association with a particular speaker, color our perception of what she or he says. While a speaker can still play a role in creating this cloud, the power ultimately rests with the people who choose to remain in it. If they don’t, it’s a cloud that can dissipate quickly.

And, for reasons unclear to me, Imus has a bonafide cumulonimbus of a semiotic cloud, regularly schmoozing with high profile politicos and journalists, whose willingness to appear on his show bestows on him a degree of gravitas he wouldn’t enjoy otherwise. Lord knows his scintillating wit and insight doesn’t merit much attention on its own.

I haven’t made it through more than five minutes of listening/watching Imus. The coquettish relationship he, and his collaborators on his show, have with out-and-out racism (and misogyny, and homophobia, etc.) aside, I just find his program incredibly dull. It’s a downer. He’s a curmudgeon without any real wit or insight to leaven his negativity. Even the humor is largely aimed at coming up with the most demeaning and vitriolic things to say about whoever comes up in conversation.

Imus’s show is thanatos to Howard Stern’s jouissance.

But, unlike Stern, who’s guest couch is usually chockablock with one-legged strippers and D-list celebs, the “I-man” still lands big-name guests.

To outrageously mix metaphors, though, this semiotic cloud is a two-edged sword. While it gives Imus a certain gravitas (isn’t he actually in the Broadcasting Hall of Fame?), it also holds him up to a higher standard. Would anyone blink if Stern had talked about “nappy headed ho’s?”
I don’t know if what Imus said about the Rutgers women’s basketball team was qualitatively worse than many of the other things that have been said by him and his cohosts. Perhaps the outcry over this most recent bit of hatefulness is sort of like Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award for The Departed—it’s more of a recognition of his lifetime achievement in the field than a response to the particular episode.

And like Scorsese’s Oscar, it’s long overdue.

Which is part of why I find it so disturbing that otherwise thoughtful, decent people continue to appear on his program and, worse yet, defend him even after this latest ugliness. I mean, for crying out loud, even Tom Oliphant claimed “solidarity” (yes, he used that word) with Imus just yesterday! Say it ain’t so!

And he’s apparently only one (and, to me at least, the most disappointing) of a growing number of members of the “I Heart the I-Man” club.

It’s time, past time in fact, for those who form the thunderhead of Imus’s semiotic cloud to disperse and fall like rain. There are venues and hosts more deserving of their time and talent.

Limbaughtomy

There must be a word for it.

There must be a technical term for a figure of speech that violates the very precept on which it’s based. Irony is sort of close, but that’s when the speaker knowingly says something at odds with the intended meaning. I’m looking for something that’s done without knowing it.

Hypocrisy is closer, but it’s a bit too broad. It refers to saying something that’s at odds with what the speaker does, thinks, or says in other circumstances. What I’m talking about is when the very statement is at odds with itself.

Paradox sort of captures it, but not quite. It suggests more of a puzzling quandary than a straightforward violation of a statement’s own content.

With the litany of Greek-based terms for rhetorical figures, you’d think that there’d be one that would label this phenomenon clearly. Perhaps there is, but I’m not aware of it.

Maybe one could be invented. To dust off my knowledge of Greek, maybe it would be called something like “autoparabaistis”— which would translate to something like “self violation” or “self transgression.”

Or maybe we could simply call such phrases examples of “Limbaughtomy.” It has a Greek ring to it, and the similarities with “lobotomy” add a nice touch.

This question came up after seeing reports of a recent example of such self-violation by Rush Limbaugh.

Commenting on the recent announcement by John and Elizabeth Edwards that her cancer has returned and that they still plan to go ahead with the presidential campaign, Limbaugh vomited forth the following:

Political people are different than you and I. And, you know, most people when
told a family member's been diagnosed with the kind of cancer Elizabeth
Edwards has, they turn to God. The Edwards turned to the campaign. Their
religion is politics and the quest for the White House.

Normally, taking Limbaugh's banal rhetoric apart would be beneath the dignity of this website, but the ugliness of this particular remark deserves a riposte. So, let the flensing begin.

It’s bad enough that Limbaugh accuses the Edwards, people I assume he doesn’t know personally, of unspeakable crassness, but in doing so, Limbaugh commits the very crassness he accuses them of: using a personal tragedy for political purposes.

To paraphrase Limbaugh, most people, when told that someone has incurable cancer, show compassion; Rush showed malignance (play on words intended). Putting political point-scoring (and relatively meaningless point-scoring at that) ahead of basic decency, Limbaugh attacked people he doesn’t know as Godless power-grubbers, and he does so for no other reason than the pleasure of doing it. This kind of vituperative rhetoric is, dare I say it, an addiction for El Rushbo.

It would be nice to simply write him off, as Keith Olbermann does, as a “comedian.” But to many millions of Americans, he’s not a comedian—he’s their primary connection to the public sphere.

Yet how do even Limbaugh’s fans not recognize the inherent idiocy of politicizing a woman’s cancer by attacking her and her husband of politicizing it?

The answer, I suppose, lies in the question itself: they’re Rush Limbaugh fans.

Some issues to discuss:

Do you think Limbaugh actually believes what he’s saying, or is this truly empty political rhetoric for its own sake?

To any Limbaugh listeners, do *you* really believe what Limbaugh said?

Disregarding the morally bankrupt and logically self-destructing comments of Limbaugh, to what extent does Elizabeth Edwards’s diagnosis affect what can and can’t be said of John Edwards?

The Past Is Gone . . . But Is It Forgotten?

In the space of just a few hundred words during his latest remarks to the press, Bush used the word “sober” twice. Such fondness for this adjective calls to mind certain peccadilloes of the president’s past that might help explain his problems with remembering time.



If there’s anything the president didn’t want to call to his audience’s attention during his remarks about the Congressional Iraq spending legislation, it’s the past—with the obvious exception of September 11, 2001, which was mentioned twice. The president’s remarks revolve around the present and future alone (a future in which, according to him, the stingy “Democrat [sic] party” will undermine the troops by cutting money from the troops—never mind that the bill gives plenty of money to the military, with the caveat that there be some plan for getting them the hell out of Iraq in the foreseeable future).

Why should this be the case? I think the answer lies with one of the favored rhetorical techniques of this administration—one that only works if the pesky past is ignored: projecting one’s own faults onto others and attacking them (a process rhetorical scholar Kenneth Burke called “scapegoating”).

Burke suggested people often do this in a way of dealing with their inner tensions and conflicts. With the president, I doubt any deep psychodrama is getting plaid out. It’s politics, plain and simple.

Notice that Bush accuses Democrats in Congress of putting their own judgment ahead of that of military commanders, of not providing for the troops, and wasting money.

Now, let’s remember that the administration ignored the pleas of the Pentagon to focus on Afghanistan rather than ramp up for an unnecessary invasion of Iraq, ignored (for utterly political reasons) the estimates of high ranking military officials saying hundreds of thousands of troops would be necessary to properly secure the country, sent tens of thousands of combat troops into the maelstrom of Iraq without proper body armor or fully armored humvees, gave cushy corporate no-bid contracts to companies chummy with the administration, staffed the reconstruction effort in Iraq with neophyte GOP operatives rather than qualified staff, etc., etc., etc. (See the fantastic book Fiasco by Tom Ricks for all the appalling details.)

The shamelessness with which Bush levels these attacks at others without any attempt to cover his flanks rhetorically speaks volumes for his contempt of the American people’s collective memory and the willingness of the press to do their homework (and their job). On the latter point, he certainly has reason for his overconfidence. On the former, he’d best be more careful.

And as for “winning this war” (as the president puts it), let’s remind ourselves of a couple of things.

First, what “war” is he talking about? Whatever war might have been fought has long since been won, for whatever it might be worth. If “war” describes our current situation in Iraq, the president is duty bound to move for not a “surge” of 20,000 troops, but a massive mobilization to occupy the country. What possible excuse could there be not to?

Well, that it’s not truly a war. And he’d be right. What we’ve got is an occupation (of sorts). The war, to the extent it exists, is a civil war among various factions in Iraq, with the U.S. in the middle. And with most Iraqis wanting us out of their country, and around half saying it’s just fine to kill American troops, what possible purpose can it truly serve to have soldiers sitting in the middle of it all?

“War” is a term the president invokes when it suits his purposes politically. He doesn’t believe it’s truly a war, nor do his staunchest supporters. If they did, they’d be making the case for a huge occupation force to move in (the sort that was needed in the first place). But they don’t.

A related point is that, whatever you might want to call the situation in Iraq (“quagmire” is an overused but accurate candidate), 20,000 troops is not going to solve it. They weren’t meant to. And the relatively toothless Congressional bills recently passed don’t do much either. Instead, we’ve got a game of political hot potato (that’s “potatoe” for you Quayle fans out there) in which the administration attempts to keep things at an only mildly disastrous level until they are out of office. To actually *do* anything, either through massive escalation or pulling out of Iraq, would be politically risky. Better to fiddle while Baghdad burns, then, when decisions are forced on a future administration, blame them for whatever nightmare unfolds (and it *will* unfold, one way or another).

Congress, for its part, is doing largely the same thing. The benchmarks and timeline ostensibly provide a chance for troops to be brought home before the next presidential election, but the bills don’t hold the president’s feet to the fire.

The president might be right that Congressional Democrats are putting politics over meaningful action on Iraq, but they are doing it only to the extent that the president himself is trying to run out the clock and pass the mess he’s created for no earthly purpose on to his successors.

But with each tick of the clock, the chimes strike midnight for more U.S. soldiers and Iraqi men, women, and children.

Bush Under the Klieg Lights

Metaphors say a lot about a text, particularly when the they aren’t meant to be obviously “metaphorical.” That is, the underlying metaphorical structure of a text structures the understanding of the message in important ways.

One of the basic ways this comes out in texts is the appeal to sensory metaphors. Bill Clinton “felt” our pain. I might “see” your point. Or I could “hear” where you’re coming from. Something might “smell fishy” about what you say, or it could carry a “whiff” of desperation. I could even leave a bad taste in my mouth.

We use these metaphors so often that they often don’t seem much like metaphors at all.
I’d suggest that in President Bush’s most recent bit of damage-control rhetoric in his statement and answers about the firing of several U.S. attorneys, we see two fundamental sensory metaphors at work: sight and sound. The way Bush develops them says a lot about his attitude toward his audience and the issue at hand.

A specific phrase Bush used twice In his statement and answers during his press conference called attention to this. In talking about how it would be a horrible thing to call administration officials to testify under oath, Bush alluded to putting “the klieg lights” on these poor, hardworking folk.

When Bush uses such a specific bit of phraseology more than once in a short space, you can bet it’s something he’s been told to invoke. And in this case, I think it fits in with a wider way of couching the sacked-attorney issue.

Specifically, if you look at Bush’s comments, you’ll notice a lot of “visual” language. Administration officials shouldn’t have to suffer under the “klieg lights.” The Democratic call for sworn testimony “shows some appear more interested in scoring political points than in learning the facts.” In fact, Bush says they seem to be asking for “show” trials. The resignations of the attorneys have become a “public spectacle.” The attorneys are “being held up to scrutiny.” Democrats “view” this episode as an opportunity to score political points rather than “finding out” the truth. If they continue in pressing for subpoenas, the opportunism of the Democrats will be “evident for the American people to see.” Rather than being taken in by the “appearance” of something, Americans should “listen to the facts.”

That last phrase is interesting. Along with loads of visual language, Bush also uses metaphors of hearing, talking, and listening. White House officials and Attorney General Gonzales are going to “explain” the truth to members of Congress. Bush has “heard” the allegations, but the American people need to “hear the truth” (a phrase he uses three separate times, in addition to “explain the truth”). Twice, he begins a statement by commanding his audience to “Listen.”

A lot of public talk includes metaphors of sight and sound. As we’ve established, we use these phrases all the time without thinking about them. What’s interesting to me is how differently the sight and sound metaphors are used.

Even just looking at the examples above, the visual metaphors tend to be negative. It’s wrong to haul administration officials out under the “klieg lights.” But if the Democrats continue refuse the president’s offer and demand subpoenas, the American people will “see” what they’re really after. Viewing is seen as an act of aggression—something that subjects the object (rightly or wrongly) to the scrutiny of the viewer.

On the other hand, speech and sound metaphors are used in positive ways. “Hearing” is the way the president assures us we will get the truth. It will be “explained” to us. Just “listen” to the president, and the facts will become known.

I’m not saying all these instances are planned. On the contrary, I think many of them are unconscious choices by the president and/or his handlers in prepping for this press conference.
But that makes them all the more interesting. The visual=negative; hearing=positive relationship in the text, while not perfect, is strong—far too strong to be mere chance.
I suggest that this has to do with the nature of the senses involved. As I said above, to be seen is a passive thing. The one who gazes at us holds the power of how long to look and for what. If you want, you can go all post-modern, Michel Foucault with this and talk about how observation or surveillance is the essence of power.

Being heard, though, is something quite different. As the late psychologist Julian Jaynes noted, to listen is in a sense to obey. It is the speaker who controls a situation, not the listener. The power relationship between the sender and receiver of the signal are nearly the reverse in a speaker/hearer relationship than they are in a viewed/viewer relationship.

So, in a speech in which Bush is attempting to characterize investigations into the attorney-firing scandal as politically motivated and to stonewall Congressional attempts to get sworn, recorded testimony from administration officials, should it surprise us that Bush tells us to “listen” to him and to his subordinates as they “explain” themselves so that we can “hear” the truth? Should it surprise us that, when it comes to the truth about Democrats on the other hand, Americans will “see” what their motivations are, that Democrats in Congress will “show” us what they’re after?

The metaphorical world that emerges from Bush’s remarks conjures up a world in which viewing is an act of aggression that is unfair when it is applied to those who are blameless (the poor attorneys who are being held up to “scrutiny” or the administration officials called out under the “klieg lights”), but is useful for getting at the truth about those who aren’t forthcoming with it (i.e., the Democrats who will “show” themselves for what they are). Such people deserve—indeed, must—be subjected to the powerful gaze of the truthseeker.

On the other hand, to find the truth about those who are forthcoming (i.e., the administration), no such aggressive acts are necessary. In fact, truth comes from listening to these people. These people hold power justly, and can be trusted to “explain” the truth to us, provided we “listen” to them. If we do, we’ll “hear the truth.” No need to scrutinize them.

And for God’s sake, don’t put them under those cursed klieg lights!

Some questions for thought:

Another obvious dichotomy Bush’s remarks draw is between the “reasonableness” of his own offer and the “partisan” and “political” motivations of the Democrats. Any thoughts on ways Bush uses language to draw this picture for us?

Is there anything to be made about how Bush places himself in the narrative he tells? Occasionally, he seems to put himself in the background (such as referring to “the White House” rather than to himself). Other times, he asserts himself quite powerfully, such as saying “I named them all [i.e., the attorneys].” Is there a pattern?

Twice in response to the first question he’s asked, Bush uses the odd locution that “there is no indication” that “anyone did anything improper.” Again, the repetition of exact language suggests something premeditated about the word choice. What should we make of this phrasing?

More info on “Gonzales-Gate”:

Washington Post
ABC News
Guardian U.K.
Media Matters
NPR
Center for American Progress

Recommended Reading at Salon.com

There's a provocative piece in Salon today on the intellectual sterility of contemporary conservatism. Using the latest bit of hate mongering from Ann Coulter as a jumping off spot, the essay suggests that Coulter is simply one of the more high-profile examples of what the right wing in general has to offer: hatred and resentment (hence the fact that she can say anything, no matter how hateful, and not be abandoned by conservatives).

While the essay doesn't use terms like "rhetoric" or "discourse," that's essentially exactly what it's about. It's a short but good read. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

A few questions I've started to mull over and would like to hear thoughts on:

Is the piece overly simplistic? Does it engage in the kind of characterization that it accuses conservative rhetoric of using?

What is the appropriate liberal/progressive rhetorical response to conservatives? Is it enough to let it eventually crumble on its own (as the author suggests it will), or are there positive, rhetorical moves Democrats can make to dismantle it? Is any progressive on the political scene doing that?

To the extent that Americans have fallen for this, why is that?

To any conservatives who might stop by, how do you feel about folks like Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, et. al. being the most visible faces of your movement? Do you tend to agree with them? Are the necessary embarassments? Or are they simply embarassments that are beneath the dignity of a party that lays claim to a distinctive intellectual history? In short, do you think conservatism *has* made a "deal with the devil?"

Callin’ Out Cousin Pookie: Clinton and Obama’s Rhetoric at Selma

For a while, some of the right-wing folks had me intrigued.

The talk of Hillary Clinton suddenly taking on a Southern accent during her speech last week at Selma was on the lips of conservative talking heads across the country—just one more example, they suggested, of her cold and calculated political maneuvering.

And if Clinton had done that, it would be fascinating (although the fact that she lived for years and years in Arkansas would make it a bit less dramatic than it seems at first glance).

But then I saw excerpts of her speech, and from what I could tell, the only part when she dipped into anything like a Southern dialect was when she was quoting from an African American spiritual that contained some idiomatic Black English. The only thing that would make Hillary sound even dopier than suddenly taking on a Southern twang would be to recite Black dialect in her typical upper Midwest accent. That she tried to give the lines a more appropriate reading speaks to her rhetorical common sense, not her calculating manner.

But while conservative commentators predictably let their anxieties and antipathy get in the way of thoughtful critique, there is something interesting to be said about the Clinton/Obama dueling speeches in Selma.

I suspect that no matter what happens in 2008, these speeches will be the subject of many a rhetorical critique exercise in political science and communication courses. What makes them fascinating is that the situations were so parallel that you have almost a pure comparison of rhetorical styles. Clinton and Obama spoke on the same day, in African American churches only blocks apart, on the same general topic (the anniversary of the 1965 civil rights march at Selma). Their audiences were largely similar, and their purposes also paralleled each other: both were speaking in the context of running for their party’s presidential nomination, and both wanted make the case that they had connections to the soul of the African American community. To do this, both had to overcome a sense that they were separated from that community by a wide gulf of social class, geography, and (even in Obama’s case) race.

Clinton had to overcome the perception that, unlike her husband, she was a typical limousine liberal without a genuine attachment to the concerns of Southern African Americans. Obama had to overcome the notion that he was somehow not “Black enough,” and perhaps not African American at all, in the usual sense, since he is not the descendent of slaves.

There’s a lot that can and will be said about how each candidate handled their parallel challenges. To get the ball rolling, I’d like to invoke the name of Kenneth Burke, perhaps the most famous American rhetorical scholar.

You might have run into Burke’s ideas if you’ve taken a college-level composition class in the last 20-30 years or so. Many freshman writing texts mention Burke’s “Pentad” in terms of finding ideas or angles on a subject you want to write about.


Burke’s pentad is a grouping of five (obviously) terms: act, agent, agency, scene, and purpose. They basically boil down to asking questions about an event: What is happening? Who is doing the action? How are they doing the action? Where/when is the action taking place? What is the action intended to accomplish?

In some ways, these parallel the typical “reporters questions:” who, what, when, where, why, and how. The main difference is that reporters ask their questions about the events themselves. Burke’s Pentad primarily targets what people say about the events.

One of Burke’s suggestions is that in any piece of rhetoric, there are usually two terms of the five that emerge as the central tension. And these two terms exist in a “ratio” that privileges one over the other. Which of the two terms is privileged changes the character of the rhetoric (e.g., a speech that privileges act over agency will be different than one that privileges agency over act).

In the case of the Clinton and Obama speeches, it’s obvious that scene plays a major role in both speeches. They are giving speeches in Selma about an event that happened there. Their audience includes people who actually participated in this event. They speak in African American churches that evoke the genesis of the Civil Rights movement. When speakers are commemorating an event at or near the site of that event, it’s a safe bet that “scene” is going to be one of the central terms.

So, the next question is what is the other half of this central ratio of terms in each speech?

I suggest that Clinton and Obama’s speeches pair “scene” up with two different terms, and for understandable reasons. These choices shape the very different speeches they give.

In Clinton’s case, her speech centers on the purpose/scene ratio (with “purpose” being the dominant term). Obama’s speech centers on the act/scene ratio (with “act” being the dominant term).

Why is this?

To quote a fairly widely used introductory text on rhetorical criticism (Modern Rhetorical Criticism by Hart and Daughton), speeches in which “purpose” dominates “scene” (such as Clinton’s) tend to focus on the general feelings and intentions of the people who participated in the event rather than the specific situation of the community these people came from. Such a speech “argues that one’s feelings and thoughts are of such importance that they override social and other consequences.”

And that’s exactly what we see in Clinton’s speech. She often abstracts the specific motivations of the marchers to talk about their general commitment to social justice, and how the march, while ostensibly about civil rights for African Americans in the 1960s, was really a fight for equality in general. Clinton goes so far as to say that she might not have been able to run for president had it not been for the blow for equality the 1965 marchers struck.

Speeches in which “act” dominates “scene” (such as Obama’s) focus on the “freely chosen activities” of the people who participated in the event. Such a speech “describes a person or group’s behavior as being of such heroic proportions that the actions of others pale in comparison.”

And that’s what we see in Obama’s speech. He praises those who marched and bemoans the fact that “we might have lost something” since then, that the current generation might not have the same fortitude and commitment as the 1965 marchers. He, too, links himself to the marchers, but takes this link to a much more concrete level than does Clinton. Rather than simply aligning his own general political values with those of the marchers, he says he might not even exist, literally, if it hadn’t been for that march.


What this reveals is that despite the almost identical situations Clinton and Obama faced, as well as the shared obstacle of creating a sense of identity between themselves and a community they didn’t obviously belong to, the rhetorical options open to Obama were wider than those for Clinton. In the end, Obama, while perhaps not “Black enough” for some, *is* identified as Black. If we grant that race is a social construct, Obama fits into that construct, at least for most. Clinton, of course, does not (despite the fact that some have argued that her husband, despite his pigmentation, did fall into that social construct in important ways).

This cannot he more clear than in the section of Obama’s speech in which, after noting that the current generation might not be adequately filling the shoes of the ’65 marchers, he chides today’s generation (and, implicitly, today’s generation of African Americans) for a lack of motivation. This is a move Clinton could never make.

This culminates in the following excerpt from Obama’s speech:

We got power in our hands. Folks are complaining about the quality of our
government, I understand there's something to be complaining about. I'm in
Washington. I see what's going on. I see those powers and principalities have
snuck back in there, that they're writing the energy bills and the drug laws.
We understand that, but I'll tell you what. I also know that, if cousin
Pookie would vote, get off the couch and register some folks and go to the
polls, we might have a different kind of politics . . . We have too many
children in poverty in this country and everybody should be ashamed, but don't
tell me it doesn't have a little to do with the fact that we got too many
daddies not acting like daddies. Don’t think that fatherhood ends at conception.
I know something about that because my father wasn't around when I was young and I struggled.

If you think Clinton got raked over the coals for using a bit of Black dialect, what do you think would’ve happened had she invoked “cousin Pookie?”

Throughout the speech, Obama identifies himself with his audience, using “we” again and again. (Obama’s speech uses some version of the first person more than 50% more frequently than does Clinton’s). He breaks down the supposed barriers between his own past and the past of his mostly African American audience by talking about his own fatherless childhood, as well as the fact that his father faced discrimination in Africa similar to that faced by African Americans in the U.S.

While both Clinton and Obama attempt to forge an identity with their audience and with the people and events of 1965 (including, in both cases, dipping into the rhetorical style of African American sermons), they ultimately do it in different ways because of the essential difference in their separation from that community. Obama’s autobiography allows him to more clearly tie himself to the marchers and to his audience, hence the more specific focus on those who marched and our indebtedness to them. For Clinton, the color of her skin is an obstacle that can’t be ignored or talked away. She must settle for a broader, gauzier, sense of identity that focuses on shared abstract principles.

Not only does this affect the way Obama and Clinton create a sense of shared identity with their audience, but also what they can do with it. As we’ve seen, Obama can offer critique from an insider’s point of view; he can chide and goad his audience in a way that would be unthinkable for Clinton. He can do this because of his insider status.

If nothing else, this tells us a lot about the power of race in American political discourse. As much as we might like to think such boundaries have faded, they still offer insurmountable obstacles that must be negotiated carefully by rhetors.

Despite the length of this post, there’s tons more that could be said about these speeches, even just from the standpoint of the pentad-based analysis I’ve sketched out here. A close reading of the speeches reveals a great deal more. And any number of other approaches would likely reveal lots of good insights as well. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the speeches.

Some questions to ponder and comment on, if you feel like it:

Do you have a sense that either/both Clinton and Obama were being “inauthentic” in their speeches?

Would Bill Clinton have more rhetorical room to maneuver if he had been in his wife’s position? Why?

What other terms of the Pentad do you feel are in play in either/both speeches?

Do you think there would be a significant difference in the level of African American involvement and support for the Democratic ticket in 2008 if the nominee were Obama rather than Clinton?

Did Hillary Clinton have any more “baggage” to overcome in forging a sense of identity with her audience than other white politicians (e.g., John Edwards)? Less?

Generally, how did you personally respond to the speeches? There different situations aside, did you feel one clearly delivered the superior speech?

Porn Free: The Rhetorical Role of Matt Sanchez

Conservative blogger Matt Sanchez offers us a fine example of rhetorical “role creation” in an essay he just penned for Salon.com.

You may have heard that Sanchez got his picture taken with Ann Coulter at the event at which she referred to John Edwards as a “faggot.” When the photo surfaced, some noted the irony in a gay man literally embracing Coulter given her comments (which was hardly the first time she’s made offensive remarks about homosexuality). When the fact that Sanchez once starred in gay pornographic movies emerged, the scrutiny intensified.

Two main purposes drive Sanchez’s Salon piece. The first is to address his past in the porn industry—a past that he had apparently tried to keep secret. The other is to address why he would apparently condone the use of hateful language directed at a community he’s part of. The implicit question he responds to is, “How can a gay man support someone who attacks your humanity in such a vulgar way?”

Sanchez does this by casting himself in the role of the Victim—not of Coulter, but of “liberals” who “outed my gay porn past.”

To do that, he has to do two seemingly contradictory things: argue that his pornographic past is no big deal (to admit there’s anything “wrong” with it would implicate himself in an act of immorality), but also argue that porn is immoral (to say otherwise would cancel his conservative credentials, if simply being gay didn’t already do that).

He wouldn’t have to negotiate that tricky tension if he made another rhetorical choice—say, that of casting himself in the role of the Repentant Sinner (a la Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, or even George W. Bush himself). But that approach doesn’t lend itself to placing responsibility on anyone else, and that’s what Sanchez wants to do.

So, we find Sanchez, in the space of a few paragraphs, both dismissing his porn career and condemning porn’s moral evils. On one hand, his stint in adult films happened “once upon a time” in the “ancient” past. It was a “long-ago summer job.” Porn itself is “self-explanatory and without depth.” It’s not something that he feels the need to disavow:

“It's just a part of my past, and as anyone who reflects on the past realizes,
it contributes to who I am today. No apologies, just recognition. No running
away, just moving forward.”

So Sanchez exonerates himself from any wrong-doing in the past. Yet, as a conservative, it’s not a rhetorical option to leave it at that. Sanchez cleanses himself rhetorically by scapegoating the porn industry itself for its moral lapses, or, as he calls it, “porn’s liberalism,” in which “everything taboo is trivialized and everything trivial is magnified.” It’s a “cult” in which he lost his belief (note again the lack of personal agency the metaphor implies). It’s this liberal mentality that ensnared him and kept him “anesthetized.”

But Sanchez accuses liberalism of more than simply sharing the same moral outlook as the porn industry. It’s guilty of hypocrisy. After all, he reasons:

Those on the left who now attack me would be defending me if I had espoused
liberal causes and spoken out against the Iraq war before I was outed as a
pseudo celebrity. They'd be talking about publishing my memoir and putting me on
a diversity ticket with Barack Obama. Instead, those who complain about
wire-tapping reserve the right to pry into my private life and my past for
political brownie points.

Of course, if he had espoused liberal causes, he likely wouldn’t have embraced someone who used the word “faggot” as a punchline. He elides the fact that the “attacks” result not from his past in pornography but from the apparent hypocrisy of a (professionally) gay man not only siding with a political camp that openly reviles homosexuality, but with a particularly ugly exemplar of its hateful excesses.

One can also take issue with his equation of himself to a victim of warrantless wiretaps. It’s one thing to have the government eavesdrop on your private phone calls without reason, quite another have regular citizens point out that they’ve seen you have mass-mediated sex for money. One’s “private life” isn’t exactly private if its on sale at the local adult bookstore.

But this isn’t simply a momentary lapse in analogical reasoning. I argue that it’s central to the rhetorical role Sanchez creates. He is the victim of liberals, a group that not only is in league with the porn industry (although, remember, there’s nothing wrong with *being* in pornography), but then hypocritically attacks and “outs” someone they would defend, if only he weren’t a Coulter fan.

As for Coulter, Sanchez says, “I don't agree with what she said, but anyone in the military would defend her right to say it.” Yet, if what Sanchez thought was so morally bankrupt about the porn industry is its penchant for trivializing the taboo (to use his own words), what is one to make of Coulter’s jocular use of “faggot?” One could argue Coulter’s entire career is based on trivializing the taboo by saying incredibly hateful and hurtful things, then writing them off as “jokes.” For that matter, Sanchez himself does this by making light of such remarks as so much weightless, meaningless babble:

We all have a tendency to want to hate the enemy. I suppose that's why Coulter
gets applause when she uses terms like "faggot" or "ragheads" (was that the last
Coulter scandal, or was it her comments about 9/11 widows?).

Perhaps most telling, however, is Sanchez’s admission that, “I am embarrassed to admit that was I worried that my fellow conservatives would distance themselves from me when the news about my film career broke.” He claims the opposite has, in fact, happened.

Whether that’s true or not is less interesting than the fact that Sanchez assumed that he would be distanced by conservatives. Perhaps it’s because conservatives have made political hay attacking gay marriage. Maybe it’s because they’ve attacked civil rights for gays and lesbians. Maybe it’s because they’ve tended to oppose hate crimes legislation. Maybe it’s because so many conservatives (including Ann Coulter) publicly say that homosexuality is degenerate.

And maybe it’s because the conservatives in Coulter’s audience laughed at her “joke.”

The fact that Sanchez worried about how his past would affect his relationship with conservatives suggests that perhaps his victim status is more than a rhetorical construct. As a gay man, he, along with gays and lesbians across the country, is victimized by so many on the Right on a regular basis.

And the anger and frustration aimed at Sanchez is not an attack on his conservatism itself, but on the fact that he seems so willing to aid and abet his own victimage.



Some questions to ponder and talk about via comments, if you like (along with anything else you might want to say):

For gay/lesbian Republicans (and those who love them): what about conservatism as an ideology speaks to you deeply enough that anti-gay aspects of the party platform can be overlooked? Is the “anti-gay” aspect of conservatism overplayed? Is the G.O.P. more open in practice than in its campaign rhetoric?

Why do you suppose Sanchez wrote this piece for Salon? Why do you suppose Salon published it?

Are there any other rhetorical options available for someone in Sanchez’s position? What else could he have said?

What other aspects of Sanchez’s article intrigue, bemuse, infuriate, entertain, surprise, or confuse you?

George Will's "Facts and Faith" Framing

In a recent column from Newsweek, George Will takes on the topic of global warming, arguing that we don’t really know that human activity is causing global warming, and even if it was, we don’t know that this would be a bad thing.

Will’s piece provides a good example of how someone can frame an argument with only a few choice words. In this case, Will carefully chooses his terminology in the early part of the column to insinuate that he’s the rational, sober voice of reason, while those who warn of global warming’s dangers base their beliefs on unsubstantiated beliefs.

We see this even in the title of the column itself, “Inconvenient Kyoto Truths.” These are the “truths” Will sets out to present to us, as opposed to the unthinking dogma of those on the other side.

Will’s first swipe at the idea of global warming as established fact is his line, “Many senators and other experts in climate science say we must ‘do something’ about global warming.” By ironically equating senators and climate scientists, Will gets a twofer: he sarcastically suggests senators who suggests senators who comment on global warming are hardly experts at all, and at the same time, he diminishes the idea of expertise in the area of climate science.

Will then links belief in global warming to dogmatic religious belief. Global warming, he suggests, is a matter of faith not based on reason and facts. Note the word choice in the following sentence from the piece: “The consensus catechism about global warming has six tenets.”

“Catechism,” of course, is a term that refers specifically to a body of accepted religious doctrine (particularly the Catechism of the Catholic Church). Coupled with this is the word “tenets,” which also carries connotations of a belief that is simply accepted as a given without criticism or reflection.

Will claims one of these “tenets” is that global warming will continue “unless we mend our ways.” Note the use of the moralistic, nearly Biblical, phrase, “mend our ways.”

Later in the essay, Will says that, “The president is now on the side of the angels, having promised to ‘confront’ the challenge of climate change.” Again, we have sarcasm used to suggest accepting the idea of global warming is tantamount to religious fundamentalism.

These word choices aren’t an accident. The concentration of such specific vocabulary is intended to frame those who warn of the dangers of global warming as unthinking, dogmatic, “true believers” who accept faith-based policy rather than looking objectively at the facts and logical relationships (as Will and his ideological allies presumably do).

In fact, Will’s entire piece is based on his assertion that we don’t actually know anything for certain about global warming. For example, take this excerpt from later in the column:

And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia,
the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were
unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it
worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there?

For the moment, let’s table the fact that the recent warming trend is far outside the parameters any similar previous temperature fluctuation recorded in the geological record, along with the fact that the ability to farm in Greenland as those lucky Vikings could would come at the price of significant portions of densely inhabited costal areas getting swallowed by the sea.

Let’s simply note that Will frames the argument to suggest that if any doubt at all can be raised regarding global warming or its effects, it cannot be accepted by anything other than a leap of unthinking faith. If one accepts Will’s terms for the debate, he wins, since there will always be a level of uncertainty about future events. No matter how much evidence is amassed, Will and his fellow travelers can always play the but-we-don’t-know-absolutely-for-certain card.

I suggest that Will is attempting a bit of rhetorical jujitsu here, attempting to make the weakness of his own position into a weapon to use against his foes. With hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies on global warming agreeing, without exception, that the earth is warming due to human actions, it is those who deny that it is happening who are basing their position on faith divorced from facts, largely because they feel that granting the validity of these facts would contradict the tenets of their own ideology (i.e., putting anything ahead of the free market and people’s ability to make and spend money at will is anathema). With science against him, Will tries to suggest, through clever word choice, that it’s really the other guys who hold the faith-based position.

Just one last note: Will makes another religious reference, one with a pagan flavor, when he refers to “climate change Cassandras” who insist that we must do something about global warming. Again, the idea is to suggest that those who are warning of the dangers of global warming are all just Chicken Littles shrilly shouting that the sky is falling.

I would have thought that someone with Will’s putative intellect would know his mythology a bit better. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophesy by the gods. Her curse was that, although she saw the future clearly and tried to warn those around her, she was doomed never to be believed until it was too late.

Perhaps Will is more right than he suspects.

The Buck Stops in Baghdad

Let’s start our rhetorical tinkering by putting President Bush’s address to the nation last month up on the rack and take a look at what makes it tick (or not).

I thought one approach that might be interesting is to do an analysis based on the actual word used in the speech. Word counting by itself is only marginally helpful when evaluating a text, but we’ve got some help in the form of a computer program called “Diction” created by rhetorical scholar Roderick Hart.

I won’t go into a long explanation of how the program works, but in essence, it counts up and categorizes words in a text, then compares the number of words in each category with averages based on typical texts of the genre.

For example, one of the categories the program uses is “self-reference.” Any words that would refer to the speaker/writer of the text fall into this category (e.g., “I,” “me,” “myself,” etc.).

After counting up these words, Diction tells you whether the text you’re analyzing uses a typical number of “self-reference” words when compared to similar texts, or if it uses a statistically significant larger or smaller number.

By itself, this might seem like a bit of linguistic trivia, but what Diction does is point to fruitful places to do more in-depth qualitative analysis. In this case, if the text uses a lot more I’s and me’s than is typical, you might want to take a closer look at how the speaker is positioning himself/herself (rhetorically speaking) in the text and think about what the significance of this might be.

Okay, so on with our analysis. I ran the text of Bush’s speech of January 2007 announcing the troop “surge” in Iraq through Diction. To add some perspective, I also had the program analyze a parallel address to the nation Bush gave just over a year earlier (December 12, 2005), soon after elections were held in Iraq. The speeches were given on parallel occasions (i.e., an apparent turning point in the U.S. occupation of Iraq) to the same audience (the American people) in the same venue (a televised primetime speech from the White House) and for the same basic purpose (to shore up support for the president’s policy). On top of that, Bush specifically refers to the 2005 speech in the first lines of his 2007 address.

The idea here was that by comparing Bush’s 2007 speech against a similar speech he had given, we’d get a bit more insight than we would if we just compared the speech against generic “norms.” I wasn’t disappointed.

Diction offers us dozens of variables, but I’d like to focus on just a few that stood out, and then offer a brief analysis of why these numbers are meaningful.

You don’t need a computer program to notice one word that’s used far less frequently in 2007 than it was in 2005: war. In his 2005 address, Bush used “war” 15 times. In 2007, he used it three times (this despite the fact that the violence in Iraq, by his own admission, had grown since his first speech).

Tuck that factoid away for a moment. Diction also points out that, compared to the 2005 speech, Bush’s 2007 address scored far lower in “self-reference.” As I noted above, that means Bush referred specifically to himself less often in his most recent speech than he did in 2005. How dramatic was this falloff? In 2005, Bush referred to himself nearly five times more often than he did in 2007.

Another variable that stands out for the breathtaking nosedive it took is the group of terms Diction refers to as “blame” words: terms that deride or assess responsibility (in a negative way) to someone or something. The 2005 address is statistically above the norms for a policy speech. In 2007, it’s fallen way off.

Going along with this is similar drop in words that express satisfaction. In 2005, Bush was again above average in this category. In 2007, this had dropped by almost a factor of three.

With all these downturns, what went up, if anything? One variable measured by Diction that took a major up-tick was “cooperation.” Just as the name suggests, these are terms implying collaboration, camaraderie, working together, etc. These words increased nearly three fold.

A variable with an inverse relationship is “denial.” These are words such as can’t, don’t, won’t, etc. that imply unwillingness, refusal, forbidding, or interdiction. These drop by a factor of five in the 2007 address.

Interestingly, words that express certainty and optimism remain virtually unchanged in 2007.

So what? Well, here’s my take.

The numbers are interesting because they suggest that in his most recent 2007 speech, Bush is not facing reality any more than he did in 2005. Had the speech been a true indicator of a major policy change that was aimed at actually changing the reality on the ground, we’d likely see a decrease in “rosy-colored” rhetoric from the 2005 self-congratulation in the wake of Iraqi elections, reflecting the tough challenges ahead. We’d also not expect to see any lessening of self-reference. On the contrary, a truly decisive speech changing course would likely be full of phrases like “I have decided . . .” and “My plan for action is . . .”

Rather than a speech focusing on a change in “strategery” in Iraq, what we have, I’d argue, is a speech aimed at preemptive blame-placing. We have a president who senses failure and is interested primarily on shifting responsibility.

Not that the president is placing blame . . . yet. In fact, as we noted, the speech is largely devoid of words that connote blame for what is going on in Iraq. To raise the topic of who is to blame at this date would be an invitation for his audience to mull that issue over and conclude that it’s Bush himself that’s to blame. Better to avoid any overt talk of who’s responsible in favor of sly suggestions at who *will* be responsible when things go to hell in a handbasket.

Obviously, the drop in self reference is a clear indicator of this. Bush puts himself in the wings rather than at center stage in the speech. In a speech in which he is talking about the disappointments of the last year in Iraq, he wants to put as much rhetorical distance as he can between the situation he describes and himself.

So who does get put on center stage? The Iraqis! Despite the fact that the 2005 speech was an homage to the growing sense of national identity in Iraq, “Iraq” and “Iraqis” only show up half as much in that speech as they did in 2007.

And if you glance at the speech itself, you’ll see that this word-counting is indicative of a substantive difference in the speeches. In 2005, there was a lot of talk about what we, the U.S., were doing to “win” in Iraq. Last month, however, Bush bent over backwards to emphasize the supporting role of the U.S. It would be the Iraqis who would crack down on the insurgents—we’d be there to help as needed.

In 2005, “our forces [were] on the road to victory—and that is the road that will take them home” according to the president. In 2007, however, “America’s commitment is not open ended” and “if the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.” What about “victory”? Well, Bush tells us that if it indeed comes, it “will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved” and “there will be no surrender ceremony on a deck of a battleship.”

Great. No wonder the term “war” vanished in the 2007 speech.

In the end, what we have is a president who pays lip service (literally) to an optimistic view of Iraq, all the while providing himself with rhetorical rat holes to escape down when the need arises. Failure in Iraq won’t be our fault (let alone his); it’ll be those spineless Iraqis.

Just to emphasize the extent to which the 2007 speech is meant to give a vague sense of a “buck-stops-here” president while actually doing the opposite, take a look at the most telling line from the whole speech: “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

Note the passive construction. The president didn’t make mistakes. Mistakes were made by unnamed persons or entities, on whose behalf the president graciously accepts the responsibility. The phrase is actually doubly passive. Not only have mistakes “been made,” but “the responsibility rests with me” (as opposed to the more active and straightforward “I take responsibility.”

Word counting is rhetorical analysis at its most mechanical, but it can be a good avenue to seeing deeper patterns. In this case, I’d suggest that the changes in the president’s word usage in these two speeches reveal that the Commander-in-Chief, rather than offering a clear and forceful vision for a new direction in Iraq, is a tour-de-force example of pre-emptive blame placing.