“A Discovered Dissembler Can Achieve Nothing Great”; Or, Four Theses on the Death of Presidential Rhetoric in an Age of Empire

Abstract

Because of the explosion of mass media, we have entered a new age of white noise; because of the disastrous extension of U.S. imperial ambitions, we have entered a new age of political deception; when these two historical factors are combined with the peculiar communicative habits of President George W. Bush, Americans are left with what we call a post‐rhetorical presidency. This is an anti‐democratic condition wherein presidential discourse is not meant to mobilize, educate, and uplift the masses; rather, by marshaling ubiquitous public chatter, waves of disinformation, and cascades of confusion‐causing misdirection, post‐rhetorical presidential discourse attempts to confuse public opinion, prevent citizen action, and frustrate citizen deliberation. Under these new conditions, the president defines fantasy, not reality; he numbs citizens rather than energizing them; instead of informing and teaching, he chooses to dumb down and stupefy. We pursue this thesis by offering four philosophical theses and three rhetorical case studies of the president's public speaking, thus combining critical theory and rhetorical criticism to help map what may represent the death of democracy.

Lieutenant Pinkerton and empire: calling for a newLa Convivenciain a post 9/11 hegemony

“…While the endless flow of propaganda (Delillo, 1984;Brock, 2004;Hartnett, & Mercieca, (2007) destroys hard-won civil ideals and democratic freedoms, there are dangerous signs of hubris and the intrusion of threatening lost and discounted multiple histories; clear difficulties in overcoming time and space; the intrusion of a more unwieldy physicality in current events; and visible and invisible portents of a future other than the triumphialism of Western, especially "exceptionalist" American, interests inter-related with "exceptionalist" religious fundamentalism. This does not mean, however, that the self-interest of elites that benefit from a globalization-virtuality-individual-sovereignty discourse (Thorne, 2010;Thorne & Kouzmin, 2006;2007a) is in any meaningful sense in retreat or hibernation.…”

“…Such disenchantment should recover the universality of hiding pragmatic self-interest within mythic formulations -to remind one that elites flux both visibility and invisibility to serve specific interests (Thorne, 2005;Thorne & Kouzmin, 2004;2007a). Specifically, this disenchantment should locate the purposeful, hegemonic interests of empire (Hartnett & Mercieca, 2007;Johnson, 2004) and imperialism (Thorne & Kouzmin, 2004; within the pervasiveness of a presumed unending "War on Terror" (Ivie & Giner, 2007).…”

The Rhetoric of Revisionism: Presidential Rhetoric about the Vietnam War since 9/11

“…This article builds upon the work of scholars, such as Stephen John Hartnett, Jennifer Rose Mercieca, Douglas Kellner, and Laura Ann Stengrim, who have all argued that the dissembling of the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 has had profound consequences for the United States. Hartnett and Mercieca (, 600) contend that the “white noise” of Bush's presidential discourse has ushered in “an age of imperial deception, cheerful dissimulation, and deadly distraction” that signals the death of presidential rhetoric, while Kellner () has attacked the “politics of lying” in the Bush administration that posed a threat to the fabric of American democracy. In examining the rhetoric of both Bush and Obama together, this article argues that the obfuscating language of presidents on the legacies of Vietnam has broad implications for the articulation and conduct of U.S. foreign policy.…”