Since President Abraham Lincoln’s great second inaugural address (May 4th 1865) nearly 150 years ago it was a long existing habit for the President’s inaugural address to present a quite ambiguous demand for diplomacy and transformation of the world. President Bush’s second inaugural address was no different. It set forth President Bush’s ambitious perception of the United States’ role in progressing of liberty, democracy, and freedom worldwide “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” . In spite of persuade his public to adhere to his arguably over ambiguous goal, President George W. Bush uses a rhetoric approach that blends parts of pathos and ethos with precise word choice to create ethically and emotionally charged diction in faiths of uniting the public. He relies also on the assumption that the public shares his thoughts on religion, his perception of America’s ideals of freedom, and the role of God.
Because the assignment of ending tyranny is certainly difficult, President George W. Bush uses pathos and ethos along with meticulously chosen diction to unify his public and establish also common ground, so that they can see the objective from the same point of view and begin working to accomplish it. He started this early in his address by demanding to establish a common history. In the 3rd paragraph he says, “At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together.” He used this technique of implementing a common history several times in the next paragraphs of the inaugural address by referring to “the day of our Foundation,” “the mission that created our Nation,” and “the honorable achievements of our fathers.”
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...sn’t study the Bible or if they have not be predisposed to its diction than the choice to use language so similar to that of the Bible may lead members of the audience to pass President Bush’s words off as idealistic and without value to the issue presented.
President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address does follow in the tradition of most of the Presidents before him and presents an ambiguous view of world transformation and diplomacy. It also avoids the pitfalls of Coolidge’s and Harding’s address which are labeled under isolationism. However with its highly emotional and ethical diction combined with an overly ambiguous vision and heavy reliance on religious views it succumbs to a different label, idealistic.
Works Cited
President Bush's Second Inaugural Address, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4460172, accessed on 17/2/2014
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