I KNEW it! My homie, Georgie, is really a genius! He’s only been pretending to be the village idiot. DAMN he’s good!
‘Book claims White House using mis-speak rhetoric
US President George W. Bush frequently has been criticized for being verbally challenged, but a new rhetorical analysis of the Bush White House, based on the public record, argues that the president and his colleagues have demonstrated an impressive facility with the language.
In plain English, the authors of a new book, based on public statements, claim that the Bush Administration has on purpose used a Machiavellian pattern of Orwellian mis-speak.
According to the authors of “Globalization and Empire: The US Invasion of Iraq, Free Markets, and the Twilight of Democracy” (University of Alabama Press), the Bush presidency has built a verbal “operation of deception” characterized by fabrications and lies, disinformation and propaganda, posturing and threats and an arsenal of rhetorical tricks, chief among them what rhetoricians call logical fallacies.
Collectively, the deceptions and policies constitute “a massive campaign to change the ways Americans think about democracy, globalization, and empire,” write authors Stephen Hartnett, a professor of speech communication, and Laura Ann Stengrim, a doctoral candidate, both at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Although it is not the first time deceptions have been foisted on the world by a dissembling president, we demonstrate that President Bush’s WMD (weapons of mass destruction) rhetoric amounts to a pattern of lying that poses a serious threat to the foundational principles of democracy,” the authors claim.
He must be a genius. It has only taken him six years to ruin everything this country was supposed to stand for.
Nice article. Jogs 2 responses:
1. If you follow the history of political communications — or you’re old enough to remember the Eisenhower administration — you’ll recall the first time our government tried to lie its way out of a military fiasco. When the Soviets shot down Gary Powers’ U2 spyplane.
Eisenhower was adamant about the flight being nowhere near the Soviet Union — instructing our UN reps to continue the lie — because he thought the plane had been destroyed and his advisors told him, “deny, deny, deny!” Problems was — the Soviets had shot it down, had the pieces and the pilot.
Major Cold War embarrassment. Not only before the rest of the world; but, the American electorate who’d been accustomed to believing Ike.
2. One of the cheeriest incidents of the post “victory” reconstruction of Iraq happened when Blair sent a member of his cabinet as personal emmisary to Bush to find out when the hell the Brits were going to get a piece of the action?
Upon his return, the MP told the press, essentially, “Bush said we get to participate when Halliburton runs out of people!”
The slimeballs doing the Madison Avenue job for Bush are absolutely the best I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately.
Most of Bush’s phraseology strikes me as unremarkable except for its mere repetition. I don’t remember such well-orchestrated use of talking points in previous administrations. I’ve noticed Bush has been especially fond of the constitutionally derived phrase “aid and comfort to the enemy” when referring to his critics, apparently hoping that people will make the short inferential leap to the concept of treason that similar phrasing was first used to describe. As long as he doesn’t actually call his critics traitors, he can’t really be blamed for what ideas pop into a person’s head.
A recent favorite parsing of language was when Karl Rove told reporter Matt Cooper that “Wilson’s wife works for the CIA,” but later told CNN “I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name.” Technically, her “name” isn’t “Wilson’s wife” so I guess he was being completely honest and forthright with the American people… NOT!
My favorite from this category remains “It depends on what the meaning of is is” from a recent bygone era.
#6 got it right. Of couse, he’s over medicated on Kool-Aid again.
#s 1 through 5 just hate Little George for his freedom and are envious of his well established monarchy.
Amen.
Allen McDonald, El Galloviejo®
It has interested and disturbed me for the last six years to listen to Pres. Bush and the current Republican Party leaders speak. Whenever they tell you what they think Democrats/political adversaries are doing wrong, if listen carefully, you will often hear them describe exactly what they themselves are doing. They just *say* other people are doing it, while doing whatever “bad” thing it is themselves. How did they get this idea? It’s a brilliant bit of misdirection. I almost have to think they believe that the general public is too stupid to figure out this tactic and that we’ll just believe whatever they say about their opponents. Some do believe everything they hear. Scary.
GWB jr,
Is as hard as a rock, but at least the ROCK, has a higher intelligence.
GW, believes what he is being TOLD.
BY those that keep him in the dark,,,Can you say MUSHROOM??
Keep him in the dark and feed him BS…
college was a time to garner your LIFEs network of those you could listen to and depend on…George has no friends, George DIDNT bring his OWN crowd into the white house WITH HIM(that would have been cool, PARTY)
Where does it say Bush is smart? I’ve seen that suggested elsewhere that it was all an act. He lost his first election after the other guy played up how he wasdn’t from Harvard and Yale like Bush.
#11
Dick Morris says all these lies even though he knows it’s not true.
Very funny Greg Allen. Well done!!