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9/11 Rhetoric

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Presidents use rhetoric to persuade U.S. security and advance national interests. Former President Bush used increasingly strong language after the September 11, 2001 attacks to create a war-like aporia. And that Former President Bush’s rhetoric set the limits of discursive definition that created the parameters of thought regarding the issue of terrorism. Whereby, using venture constitutionalism to promote U.S. security and to advance national interests. Jeffrey Tulis (1996) makes claim that Former President Woodrow Wilson transformed the presidency and the government by advocating an executive that governed by persuasion and popular leadership. Furthermore, David Crockett, (2003) views Former President Wilson as a popular “leader-interpreter” …show more content…

One is “association”, the linking of two concepts together. This is seen when the 9/11 “attacks” were defined immediately as an “act of war”. Simply put, a crisis such as war rearranges the rhetorical ground. The urgency of the situation requires quick response and establishes a presumption in favor of action. There is no time to consider carefully all the arguments and objections that might arise during peacetime. Former President Bush instantly and instantly reacted to the news of the attack by saying simply, “We are at war.” Thus Former President Bush is associating the 9/11 attacks with warfare. Former President Bush again is employing rhetorical techniques to define reality in a new way. In addition, he is also disassociating the “new” war from the old style wars. All of this begins to highlight the pertinence of Schmitt’s theory for understanding post 9/11 rhetoric. In addition to defining “unity” in a certain way, Bush also offers a type of what David Zarefsky calls “frame shifting”. Former President Bush asserts that the government is at heightened security, and it is not simply “business as usual”. “Yet he also says we must go forward and not allow the attackers to restrict our freedoms or challenge our way of …show more content…

This weekend I am engaged in extensive sessions with members of my National Security Council, as we plan a comprehensive assault on terrorism” Whitehouse.gov (2001) Here, the Former President has associated the attackers with “terrorism” and has explained that the National Security Team is planning a comprehensive assault on terrorism. Again, security is the primary issue, and it is the first topic of the speech. Further into the speech, in his words, “In Washington D.C. the political parties and both houses of Congress have shown a terrorist attack designed to tear us apart has instead bound us together as a nation” Again, unity is the key to the nation being safe from terrorists. Whereby, Former President Bush associates disunity with the goal of terrorist attack. To not be unified is to play into the terrorists hands. Once more, Carl Schmitt’s notions of sovereignty come into play, this time with a combination of the power to define “us” and “them” as well as the power to declare a “state of

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