Voice of Minnesota: Dr. Richard Ice on Bush’s Rhetoric

With a backdrop of bookshelves and an oil lamp, George Bush addressed the nation tonight, not from the Oval Office but from the White House Library. But was the change in venue enough to signal a significant change in strategy for Iraq? Dr. Richard Ice, Professor of Communication at St. John’s University in Collegeville, shared his thoughts on the rhetoric of Bush’s speech.

More…

I’m surprised they were in the library. The message is they’ve got a different setting, which suggests a different strategy. I don’t think it was different enough.

He built up the argument that Iraq is central to our fight against terrorism, but also making it this kind of beacon of democracy in the whole area. He really upped the stakes of success in Iraq. Then he went to great pains to show this is somehow a different strategy. But I’m not sure most Americans see this as a different strategy. Embedding American troopss with the Iraqis? Most people might see this as a more dangerous strategy. He’s making the argument that they’re going to be able to not only expel the insurgents from areas now, but also hold the area…

Right after September 11, the theme was: victory over terrorism was different than victory in any other kind of war. That’s a good example of a rhetorical problem he’s got. He uses “war on terrorism” to mean both a literal war and a metaphoric war, and those two things get confused. Because when he talks about it as a literal war