The Moral Rhetoric Of American Presidents

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The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents

Author : Colleen J. Shogan
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1603444599
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents by : Colleen J. Shogan

Download or read book The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents written by Colleen J. Shogan and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although sometimes decried by pundits, George W. Bush?s use of moral and religious rhetoric is far from unique in the American presidency. Throughout history and across party boundaries, presidents have used such appeals, with varying degrees of political success. The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents astutely analyzes the president?s role as the nation?s moral spokesman.?Armed with quantitative methods from political science and the qualitative case study approach prevalent in rhetorical studies, Colleen J. Shogan demonstrates that moral and religious rhetoric is not simply a reflection of individual character or an expression of American "civil religion" but a strategic tool presidents can use to enhance their constitutional authority.?To determine how the use of moral rhetoric has changed over time, Shogan employs content analysis of the inaugural and annual addresses of all the presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush. This quantitative evidence shows that while presidents of both parties have used moral and religious arguments, the frequency has fluctuated considerably and the language has become increasingly detached from relevant policy arguments.?Shogan explores the political effects of the rhetorical choices presidents make through nine historical cases (Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Buchanan, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Carter). She shows that presidents who adapt their rhetoric to the political conditions at hand enhance their constitutional authority, while presidents who ignore political constraints suffer adverse political consequences. The case studies allow Shogan to highlight the specific political circumstances that encourage or discourage the use of moral rhetoric.?Shogan concludes with an analysis of several dilemmas of governance instigated by George W. Bush?s persistent devotion to moral and religious argumentation.

The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations

Author : Justin S. Vaughn
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1623490421
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (234 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations by : Justin S. Vaughn

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations written by Justin S. Vaughn and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Campaign rhetoric helps candidates to get elected, but its effects last well beyond the counting of the ballots; this was perhaps never truer than in Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. Did Obama create such high expectations that they actually hindered his ability to enact his agenda? Should we judge his performance by the scale of the expectations his rhetoric generated, or against some other standard? The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency grapples with these and other important questions. Barack Obama’s election seemed to many to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of the “long arc of the moral universe . . . bending toward justice.” And after the terrorism, war, and economic downturn of the previous decade, candidate Obama’s rhetoric cast broad visions of a change in the direction of American life. In these and other ways, the election of 2008 presented an especially strong example of creating expectations that would shape the public’s views of the incoming administration. The public’s high expectations, in turn, become a part of any president’s burden upon assuming office. The interdisciplinary scholars who have contributed to this volume focus their analysis upon three kinds of presidential burdens: institutional burdens (specific to the office of the presidency); contextual burdens (specific to the historical moment within which the president assumes office); and personal burdens (specific to the individual who becomes president).

Presidents in Culture

Author : David Ryfe
Publisher : Peter Lang
ISBN 13 : 9780820474564
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (745 download)

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Book Synopsis Presidents in Culture by : David Ryfe

Download or read book Presidents in Culture written by David Ryfe and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2005 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether writing from the perspective of rhetoric or political science, scholars of presidential communication often assume that the ultimate meaning of presidential rhetoric lies in whether it achieves policy success. In this book, David Michael Ryfe argues that although presidential rhetoric has many meanings, one of the most important is how it rhetorically constructs the practice of presidential communication itself. Drawing upon an examination of presidential rhetoric in the twentieth century - from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton - Ryfe surveys the shifting meaning of presidential communication. In doing so, he reveals that the so-called public or rhetorical presidency is not one fixed entity, but rather a continuously negotiated discursive construct.

The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership

Author : Leroy G. Dorsey
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781603440561
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership by : Leroy G. Dorsey

Download or read book The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership written by Leroy G. Dorsey and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-26 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successful presidential leadership depends upon words as well as deeds. In this multifaceted look at rhetorical leadership, twelve leading scholars in three different disciplines provide in-depth studies of how words have served or disserved American presidents. At the heart of rhetorical leadership lies the classical concept of prudence, practical wisdom that combines good sense with good character. From their disparate treatments of a range of presidencies, an underlying agreement emerges among the historians, political scientists, and communication scholars included in the volume. To be effective, they find, presidents must be able to articulate the common good in a particular situation and they must be credible on the basis of their own character. Who they are and what they can do are thus twin pillars of successful rhetorical leadership. Leroy G. Dorsey introduces these themes, and David Zarefsky picks them up in looking at the historical development of rhetorical leadership within the office of the presidency. Each succeeding chapter then examines the rhetorical leadership of a particular president, often within the context of a specific incident or challenge that marked his term in office. Chapters dealing with George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton offer the specifics for a clearer understanding of how rhetoric serves leadership in the American presidency. This book provides an indispensable addition to the literature on the presidency and in leadership studies.

Green Talk in the White House

Author : Tarla Rai Peterson
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1603446354
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Green Talk in the White House by : Tarla Rai Peterson

Download or read book Green Talk in the White House written by Tarla Rai Peterson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation This book gathers an array of approaches to studying environmental rhetoric and the presidency, covering a range of administrations and a diversity of viewpoints on how the concept of the "rhetorical presidency" may be modified in this policy area.

Presidential Healthcare Reform Rhetoric

Author : Noam Schimmel
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 331932960X
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis Presidential Healthcare Reform Rhetoric by : Noam Schimmel

Download or read book Presidential Healthcare Reform Rhetoric written by Noam Schimmel and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by the four Democratic presidents, Truman, Johnson, Clinton and Obama, who tried to expand access to and affordability of healthcare in the United States. It considers how they made such arguments, the ethics they advanced, and the vision of America they espoused. The author combines rhetoric analysis, policy analysis, and policy history to illuminate the dynamic nature of the way American presidents have imagined the moral and social bonds of the American people and their exhortations for governance and policy to reflect and honor these bonds and obligations. Schimmel illustrates how Democratic presidents invoke positive liberty and communitarian values in direct challenge to opposing conservative ideologies of limited government and prioritization of negative liberty and their increasing prominence in the post-Reagan era. He also draws attention to the ethical and policy compromises entailed by the usage of specific rhetorical strategies and their resulting discursive effects.

The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents

Author : Colleen J. Shogan
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781585446391
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (463 download)

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Book Synopsis The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents by : Colleen J. Shogan

Download or read book The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents written by Colleen J. Shogan and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2007-09-17 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although sometimes decried by pundits, George W. Bush’s use of moral and religious rhetoric is far from unique in the American presidency. Throughout history and across party boundaries, presidents have used such appeals, with varying degrees of political success. The Moral Rhetoric of American Presidents astutely analyzes the president’s role as the nation’s moral spokesman. Armed with quantitative methods from political science and the qualitative case study approach prevalent in rhetorical studies, Colleen J. Shogan demonstrates that moral and religious rhetoric is not simply a reflection of individual character or an expression of American “civil religion” but a strategic tool presidents can use to enhance their constitutional authority. To determine how the use of moral rhetoric has changed over time, Shogan employs content analysis of the inaugural and annual addresses of all the presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush. This quantitative evidence shows that while presidents of both parties have used moral and religious arguments, the frequency has fluctuated considerably and the language has become increasingly detached from relevant policy arguments. Shogan explores the political effects of the rhetorical choices presidents make through nine historical cases (Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Buchanan, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Carter). She shows that presidents who adapt their rhetoric to the political conditions at hand enhance their constitutional authority, while presidents who ignore political constraints suffer adverse political consequences. The case studies allow Shogan to highlight the specific political circumstances that encourage or discourage the use of moral rhetoric. Shogan concludes with an analysis of several dilemmas of governance instigated by George W. Bush’s persistent devotion to moral and religious argumentation.

The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush

Author : Martin J. Medhurst
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781585444717
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (447 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush by : Martin J. Medhurst

Download or read book The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush written by Martin J. Medhurst and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-15 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For George H. W. Bush, the distinction between campaigning (“politics”) and governing (“principles”) was crucial. Once in office, he abandoned his campaign mode and with it the rhetorical strategies that brought electoral success. Not recognizing the crucial importance of rhetoric to policy formation and implementation, Bush forfeited the resources of the bully pulpit and paid the price of electoral defeat. In this first-ever analysis of Bush’s rhetoric to draw on the archives of the Bush Presidential Library, scholars explore eight major events or topics associated with his presidency: the first Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin wall, the “New World Order,” Bush’s “education presidency,” his environmental stance, the “vision thing,” and the influence of the Religious Right. The volume concludes with a cogent of the 1992 re-election campaign and Bush’s last-gasp use of economic rhetoric.Drawing on the resources of the Bush Presidential Library and interviews with many of Bush’s White House aides, the scholars included in this tightly organized volume ask, How well did President Bush and his administration respond to events, issues, and situations? In the process, they also suggest how a more perceptive embrace of the art of rhetoric might have allowed them to respond more successfully.The Rhetorical Presidency of George H. W. Bush breaks important ground for our understanding of the forty-first president’s time in office and the reasons it ended so quickly.

Essays in Presidential Rhetoric

Author : Theodore Windt
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 616 pages
Book Rating : 4.X/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Essays in Presidential Rhetoric by : Theodore Windt

Download or read book Essays in Presidential Rhetoric written by Theodore Windt and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

American Presidents

Author : Gleaves Whitney
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739103937
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis American Presidents by : Gleaves Whitney

Download or read book American Presidents written by Gleaves Whitney and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique collection presents the parting words of the presidents of the United States, from Washington to Clinton. A hybrid of literary masterpiece and historical document, each speech reveals its orator's ideals for the government of our nation. Washington warns against entangling alliances; Eisenhower voices his fears of the military-industrial complex; Reagan leaves office with an emotional call for the remembrance of American history in service of informed patriotism. Each leader imparts his final message in the form of a political or moral lesson--or, in some cases, prophecy. Read consecutively from president to president, the messages form a wonderfully American conversation. This conversation invokes ordered liberty, self-government under the rule of law, and the nation's special destiny in human history, and it transcends partisan politics.The volume is prefaced by a detailed introduction discussing the importance of the valedictory address and the power of presidential rhetoric, and each speech is preceded by a brief contextualizing statement. In the last official words of each president, readers will find cautions, hopes, and suggestions relevant for today's world and future generations. American Presidents is an invaluable reference, especially for scholars of the presidency, but also for anyone interested in the history, politics, and culture of the United States.

Selling War, Selling Hope

Author : Anthony R. DiMaggio
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438457952
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

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Book Synopsis Selling War, Selling Hope by : Anthony R. DiMaggio

Download or read book Selling War, Selling Hope written by Anthony R. DiMaggio and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2015-09-21 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details how presidents utilize mass media to justify foreign policy objectives in the aftermath of 9/11. Modern presidents have considerable power in selling U.S. foreign policy objectives to the public. In Selling War, Selling Hope, Anthony R. DiMaggio documents how presidents often make use of the media to create a positive informational environment that, at least in the short term, successfully builds public support for policy proposals. Using timely case studies with a focus on the Arab Spring and the U.S. War on Terror in the Middle East and surrounding regions, DiMaggio explains how official spin is employed to construct narratives that are sympathetic to U.S. officialdom. The mass media, rather than exhibiting independence when it comes to reporting foreign policy issues, is regularly utilized as a political tool for selling official proposals. The marginalization of alternative, critical viewpoints poses a significant obstacle to informed public deliberations on foreign policy issues. In the long run, however, the packaging of official narrative and its delivery by the media begins to unravel as citizens are able to make use of alternative sources of information and assert their independence from official viewpoints. Selling War, Selling Hope is an innovative project that pushes the fields of political science, political communication, public opinion, and presidential rhetoric into new and exciting directions. This book is essential reading. Mark Major, author of The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media: The Politics of Framing Executive Power This eye-opening exposition offers a radical new conclusion to the debate over why Americans oppose wars: Americans oppose particular wars for moral reasons. By capturing the wide range of presidential rhetoric from fear to hope, DiMaggio documents the depths plumbed by political and other elites to manipulate the American public to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to counteract American citizens moral opposition to war, political elites manipulate citizens fears into support for war by giving them hope, but the policies they choose, more often than not, lead to more war and reason for fear which creates a vicious cycle: fearhopewar. The challenge we face is to break through the noise and the manipulation of political, economic, and military elites. DiMaggio offers us a way to see clearly. Amentahru Wahlrab, University of Texas at Tyler

Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric

Author : Colleen Elizabeth Kelley
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739129258
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (292 download)

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Book Synopsis Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric by : Colleen Elizabeth Kelley

Download or read book Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric written by Colleen Elizabeth Kelley and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric examines the communication offensive orchestrated by George W. Bush and the members of his administration between the initial terrorism crisis of September 11, 2001, and the March 20, 2003, invasion of Iraq. Colleen Elizabeth Kelley argues that the president relied on a set of particular strategies that coalesced into protofascist talk in order to discursively manage the post-9/11 situation and justify the president's 2003 war against Iraq. This book suggests a framework for analyzing emergent fascist public discourse and its potential for producing additional substantial antidemocratic speech and action. Kelley further reviews the role of the media in conveying President Bush's rhetorical doctrine to the American public. The rhetoric of democratic discourse is presented as a firewall to guarantee that such speech-based behaviors, which are endorsed by willing publics and developed within democracies, fail to thrive and do not destroy the very systems that enabled them in the first place. Post-9/11 American Presidential Rhetoric is a stimulating text that will strike up discussion among scholars of political communication and those interested in cultural studies. Book jacket.

Presidential Speechwriting

Author : Kurt Ritter
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1603445749
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (34 download)

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Book Synopsis Presidential Speechwriting by : Kurt Ritter

Download or read book Presidential Speechwriting written by Kurt Ritter and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation. The chapters in this book (two by former White House speechwriters) give insight into the process of presidential speechwriting, from Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration to Ronald Reagan's.

The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations

Author : Justin S. Vaughn
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781461958277
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (582 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations by : Justin S. Vaughn

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations written by Justin S. Vaughn and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Campaign rhetoric helps candidates to get elected, but its effects last well beyond the counting of the ballots; this was perhaps never truer than in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Did Obama create such high expectations that they actually hindered his ability to enact his agenda? Should we judge his performance by the scale of the expectations his rhetoric generated, or against some other standard? The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency grapples with these and other important questions. Barack Obama's election seemed to many to fulfill Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of the "long arc of the moral universe ... bending toward justice." And after the terrorism, war, and economic downturn of the previous decade, candidate Obama's rhetoric cast broad visions of a change in the direction of American life. In these and other ways, the election of 2008 presented an especially strong example of creating expectations that would shape the public's views of the incoming administration. The public's high expectations, in turn, become a part of any president's burden upon assuming office. The interdisciplinary scholars who have contributed to this volume focus their analysis upon three kinds of presidential burdens: institutional burdens (specific to the office of the presidency); contextual burdens (specific to the historical moment within which the president assumes office); and personal burdens (specific to the individual who becomes president).--Publisher description.

Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency

Author : Martin J. Medhurst
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency by : Martin J. Medhurst

Download or read book Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency written by Martin J. Medhurst and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the administrations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the American presidency underwent many profound changes. Chief among those was a radical evolution in the interaction of the president with the general public. Divided into three sections, the ten essays of this volume focus on that evolution and offer thought-provoking analyses concerning the role of presidential rhetoric in passing policy, generating support, and promoting public discourse. In Part I, Jeffrey Tulis, who introduced the concept of the rhetorical presidency more than a decade ago, considers how the dilemmas he envisioned as part of that concept change just as the political arena changes. Glen E. Thurow reflects on private virtue and public duty as aspects of presidential character. Bruce E. Gronbeck argues that the electronic age has fundamentally changed the nature and impact of presidential rhetoric and, indeed, the presidency itself, while Thomas W. Benson contemplates whether politics is even possible in the environment of current computer-mediated communications. Part II turns from theoretical and metatheoretical explorations to practical criticism in a series of case studies. Roderick P. Hart and Kathleen Kendall evaluate the significance of a single telephone conversation about civil rights between Vice President Lyndon Johnson and Theodore Sorenson in June, 1963. Using Richard Nixon's rhetoric as the example from which to draw general themes and issues, Edwin Black considers the complex moral economy that supports presidential self-invention. G. Thomas Goodnight uses the debate over Ronald Reagan's policy toward Central America to study "rhetorical history . . . contested memory and the uses of time in the service of power." Robert L. Ivie examines Graubard's critique of presidential war rhetoric in the context of the Persian Gulf action. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell presents a framework for understanding the public views of the First Lady, focusing on Hillary Rodham Clinton but drawing historical parallels. Finally, Part III of this volume offers a social scientific assessment of the theoretical and interpretive research on presidential rhetoric from one of the nation's leading scholars of the presidency, George Edwards. An introduction and afterword by series editor Martin J. Medhurst seek to clarify the nature and status of the debate about the rhetorical presidency. Beyond the Rhetorical Presidency offers scholars with an interest in speech communication and political science a volume that reexamines the place and significance of presidential rhetoric.

God Wills It

Author : David O'Connell
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1412855322
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis God Wills It by : David O'Connell

Download or read book God Wills It written by David O'Connell and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God Wills It is a comprehensive study of presidential religious rhetoric. Using careful analysis of hundreds of transcripts, David O’Connell reveals the hidden strategy behind presidential religious speech. He asks when and why religious language is used, and when it is, whether such language is influential. Case studies explore the religious arguments presidents have made to defend their decisions on issues like defense spending, environmental protection, and presidential scandals. O’Connell provides strong evidence that when religious rhetoric is used public opinion typically goes against the president, the media reacts harshly to his words, and Congress fails to do as he wants. An experimental chapter casts even further doubt on the persuasiveness of religious rhetoric. God Wills It shows that presidents do not talk this way because they want to. Presidents like Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were quite uncomfortable using faith to promote their agendas. They did so because they felt they must. God Wills It shows that even if presidents attempt to call on the deity, the more important question remains: Will God come when they do?

Writing JFK

Author : Thomas W. Benson
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781585442812
Total Pages : 156 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (428 download)

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Book Synopsis Writing JFK by : Thomas W. Benson

Download or read book Writing JFK written by Thomas W. Benson and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the dramatic Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, President John F. Kennedy moved to repair the damage the invasion had done to his image and to his relations with the press. Thomas W. Benson examines two speeches and a press conference held by JFK in the days after the crisis, shedding light on how the structures of speech writing influence the texts of the speeches and policy formation, as well as the ways the press mediates and even helps to formulate presidential rhetoric. Writing JFK: Speechwriting and the Press in the Bay of Pigs Crisis provides the full text of both speeches and the press conference, as well as Benson's analysis of what would come to be known as "spin control." He demonstrates how the speeches display the implicit collaboration of Kennedy with his speech writers and the press to create a depiction of Kennedy as a political and moral agent. A central feature of the book is Benson's exploration of "the enormous power of the presidency to compel press restraint and to command the powers of publicity." In this brief but intensive examination, Benson holds a magnifying glass of rhetorical inquiry to the processes of contemporary government. These speeches have never before been studied in such depth, and Benson has drawn on many sources to arrive at unique historical and critical understanding of them. The resulting insight into the relationship among the press, politics, and public policy will appeal to all those interested in politics and rhetoric, the power of the American president, and the legacy of JFK.