Sims Like Old Times

Did Herman Cain take his 9-9-9 tax plan from Sim City? This brings a whole new dimension to the notion of role of the think tank in American politics. According to the Huffington Post,

WASHINGTON -- In Herman Cain's America, the tax code would be very, very simple: The corporate income tax rate would be 9 percent, the personal income tax rate would be 9 percent and the national sales tax rate would be 9 percent.

But there's already a 999 plan out there, in a land called SimCity. . . . (more)

"Herman Cain 999 Plan: Did It Come from SimCity?" Huffington Post, 13 October 2011.

Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

From today's New York Times, on the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration, a consideration of his inaugural address.

"Lincoln Addresses the Nation," New York Times, 4 March 2011.

Techno Politics

John Allen Hendricks and Lynda Lee Kaid, eds., Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning: New Voices, New Technologies, and New Voters (Routledge, 2010).

Confessional Politics

Bryan T. Kaylor, Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in an Age of Confessional Politics (Lexington Books, 2011).

from the publisher:

"When a Bible-quoting Sunday School teacher, Jimmy Carter, won the 1976 presidential election, it marked the start of a new era of presidential campaign discourse. The successful candidates since then have followed Carter's lead in publicly testifying about their personal religious beliefs and invoking God to justify their public policy positions and their political visions. With this new confessional political style, the candidates have repudiated the former perspective of a civil-religious contract that kept political leaders from being too religious and religious leaders from being too political. Presidential Campaign Rhetoric in the Age of Confessional Politics analyzes the religious-political discourse used by presidential nominees from 1976-2008, and then describes key characteristics of their confessional rhetoric that represent a substantial shift from the tenets of the civil-religious contract. This new confessional political style is characterized by religious-political rhetoric that is testimonial, partisan, sectarian, and liturgical in nature. In order to understand why candidates have radically adjusted their God talk on the campaign trail, important religious-political shifts in American society since the 1950s are examined, which demonstrate the rhetorical demands evangelical religious leaders have placed upon our would-be national leaders. Brian T. Kaylor utilizes Michel Foucault's work on the confession_with theoretical adjustments_to critique the significant problems of the confessional political era. With clear analyses and unsettling relevance, Kaylor's critique of contemporary political discourse will rouse the interest and concern of engaged citizens everywhere."

Dog Bites Back

Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times, calls (as so many have since January 2009) for President Obama to fight back, harder and in public rhetoric, against the conservative opposition and big business. This longing for presidential rhetoric seems to be a recurrent feature of our national life.

Rich even recommends FDR's 1936 Madison Square Garden speech excoriating his opposition -- a speech that my students always find a shocker. Here is a key passage from Franklin Roosevelt's speech, near the end of his first term:

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

Frank Rich, "Time for This Big Dog to Bite Back," New York Times, 12 September 2010.

Does big business try to run (or to stop) the government? Where to start? Have a look at Eric Lipton, "A G.O.P. Leader Tightly Bound to Lobbyists," New York Times, 11 September 2010. "As Democrats try to cast John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, as the face of the Republican Party, his ties to lobbyists are under attack. . . ."

Rhetoric, Politics, and the Obama Phenomenon

photo: The White House, Pete Souza, 5 February 2010

The registration deadline for the Rhetoric, Politics, and Obama Phenomenon conference at Texas A&M University is February 22, 2010. Registration information can be found here:
http://comm.tamu.edu/phenomenonregistration.html

The conference will draw together scholars of Communication, Political Science, History, English, Women's Studies, Africana Studies, and others. The program can be found on the conference website:
http://comm.tamu.edu/phenomenonprogram.html

"Rhetoric, Politics, and the Obama Phenomenon," Texas A&M University, March 4-7, 2010.

Barack Obama's meteoric rise from a little known Illinois state Senator in 2004 to President of the United States in 2008 was made possible in large part by his exceptional media strategies and rhetorical performances.

President Obama's image, words, and family have all become a part of the world-wide phenomenon that is Barack Obama. This conference will bring together rhetoric, media, and political science scholars to explore and analyze Barack Obama's image politics, communication practices, and rhetorical strategies. Scholars will present papers on such topics as the visual politics of Obama, Obama and leadership, Obama and civil rights, Obama's rhetorical style, and other topics relevant to the Obama phenomenon.

Bonnie Dow will deliver Texas A&M's annual Kurt Ritter Lecture in Political Rhetoric during the conference on the image politics/media coverage of Michelle Obama. One goal of the conference is to draw together both established and junior scholars (including graduate students) who are
interested in the Obama phenomenon. Therefore, the conference will feature both plenary speakers and contributed paper presentations. A second goal of the conference is to draw together a group of interdisciplinary scholars who are interested in the Obama phenomenon. Plenary and contributed papers and responses will be competitively selected to appear in a planned edited conference volume.

Please contact Jennifer Mercieca at mercieca@tamu.edu if you have any questions.


Dr. Jennifer R. Mercieca
Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Texas A&M University
4234 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843
mercieca@tamu.edu
Homepage: http://comm.tamu.edu/people/mercieca.html
Obamenon Conference: http://comm.tamu.edu/phenomenonprogram.html
Founding Fictions: http://amzn.com/0817316906

President Obama at Ford Hood - Echoes of Eloquence

President Obama's speech at the memorial service for those killed at Ford Hood seemed to me simple, dignified, and morally firm. He came as the Commander in Chief, and it was his role to comfort the survivors, honor the fallen, and speak of our common resolve. There were deliberate echoes of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, with its own echoes of the Declaration of Independence, of FDR's War Message, and of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

Is there an echo of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, from the speech near the end of the novel when the son says goodbye to his mother? --

"Whenever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there... I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'-I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why, I'll be there."

- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 28

Here is the president's echo. President Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at Memorial Service at Fort Hood,” Fort Hood - III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas. 10 November 2008:

But here is what you must also know: Your loved ones endure through the life of our nation. Their memory will be honored in the places they lived and by the people they touched. Their life's work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- that is their legacy.

And there were echoes of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's War Message of December 8, 1941:

We are a nation that endures because of the courage of those who defend it. We saw that valor in those who braved bullets here at Fort Hood, just as surely as we see it in those who signed up knowing that they would serve in harm’s way.

We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes. We're a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses. And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln’s words, and always pray to be on the side of God. We're a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military, and see it in the varied backgrounds of those we lay to rest today. We defend that truth at home and abroad, and we know that Americans will always be found on the side of liberty and equality. That's who we are as a people.

Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda

Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates, Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda: Constructing the War on Drugs (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).

from the publisher:

The bully pulpit is one of the modern president's most powerful tools -- and one of the most elusive to measure. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda uses the war on drugs as a case study to explore whether and how a president's public statements affect the formation and carrying out of policy in the United States.

When in June 1971 President Richard M. Nixon initiated the modern war on drugs, he did so with rhetorical flourish and force, setting in motion a federal policy that has been largely followed for more than three decades. Using qualitative and quantitative measurements, Andrew B. Whitford and Jeff Yates examine presidential proclamations about battling illicit drug use and their effect on the enforcement of anti—drug laws at the national, state, and local level. They analyze specific pronouncements and the social and political contexts in which they are made; examine the relationship between presidential leadership in the war on drugs and the policy agenda of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorneys; and assess how closely a president's drug policy is implemented in local jurisdictions.

In evaluating the data, this sophisticated study of presidential leadership shows clearly that with careful consideration of issues and pronouncements a president can effectively harness the bully pulpit to drive policy.

"Original and important. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda is a well—conceived contribution to the literature on the rhetorical presidency and bureaucratic action." -- Andrew Rudalevige, Dickinson College

"President Nixon announced the war on drugs forty years ago, and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently wrote that 'it appears that drugs have won.' In their careful analysis in this important book, Whitford and Yates demonstrate that the rhetoric of presidents can influence the course of public policy, particularly including implementation. Words matter, even in the supposedly technical aspects of policy implementation, and they do so in a way that frames and, yes, 'constructs' the policy itself." -- Bryan D. Jones, The University of Texas at Austin

"Whitford and Yates make a strong case for the proposition that presidents can, and do, use public rhetoric to affect how policy is implemented by executive agencies. Whereas most previous studies of presidential rhetoric have focused on appeals made to the mass public, they focus on the effects of public speeches on field agents charged with implementing policy. That such an effect might exist is not obvious. Nonetheless, their argument is nuanced and well—crafted and their evidence -- both qualitative and quantitative -- is compelling. The end result is a thought—provoking study that challenges standard views of executive power. I have no doubt that this book will become required reading for all students of the presidency and the bureaucracy." -- Kevin Quinn, Harvard University

Andrew B. Whitford is a professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia's School of Public and International Affairs. Jeff Yates is a professor of political science at Binghamton University and the author of Popular Justice: Presidential Prestige and Executive Success in the Supreme Court.

Ted Sorensen on Writing for John F. Kennedy

The Economy - President Obama at Georgetown, 14 April 2009

In President Obama's speech on the economy at Georgetown last week, he said, in part,

For even as too many were out there chasing ever-bigger bonuses and short-term profits over the last decade, we continued to neglect the long-term threats to our prosperity: the crushing burden that the rising cost of health care is placing on families and businesses; the failure of our education system to prepare our workers for a new age; the progress that other nations are making on clean energy industries and technologies while we -- we remain addicted to foreign oil; the growing debt that we're passing on to our children. Even after we emerge from the current recession, these challenges will still represent major obstacles that stand in the way of our success in the 21st century. So we've got a lot of work to do.

Now, there's a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock."

It was founded upon a rock. We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity -- a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.

It's a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: Number one, new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation, not reckless risk-taking -- (applause); number two, new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive -- (applause); number three, new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and new industries -- (applause); number four, new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and number five, new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. (Applause.)

That's the new foundation we must build. That's our house built upon a rock. That must be our future -- and my administration's policies are designed to achieve that future.

The speech is well worth reading as a masterpiece of exposition and advocacy. President Obama tells his listeners in the opening of his speech that, "I want to step back for a moment and explain our strategy as clearly as I can. This is going to be prose, and not poetry. I want to talk about what we've done, why we've done it, and what we have left to do. I want to update you on the progress we've made, but I also want to be honest about the pitfalls that may still lie ahead."

You may not quite agree with the president's economic policies, but at least it appears to be treated by the president as a subject of democratic deliberation.

John Murphy of the University of Illinois, one of our most astute critics of presidential rhetoric, offers a nice analysis of the speech on his blog, The Oratorical Animal. Murphy praises the speech but with the reservation that, in his view, the arguments offered to support the bank bailouts are incoherent and unsupported.

Barack Obama, "REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON THE ECONOMY," Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., 14 April 2009.

And see Paul Krugman, "Too Many Narratives," New York Times, 15 April 2009. Krugman argues that the administration has offered too many different explanations for the way it is supporting the banks, and writes, "Can I say that this very proliferation of narratives is disturbing? I don’t want to claim moral equivalence with the Bushies, who were utterly cynical about such things. . . ."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown Speech to U.S. Congress, 4 March 2009

On his visit to the United States to confer with President Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed a joint session of the U. S. Congress. The speech has been drawing increasingly enthusiastic attention.

In today's New York Times, Roger Cohen suggested that President Obama could learn something from Brown's example of uplifting and optimistic rhetoric on that occasion. Cohen alludes to a Jon Stewart story on the Gordon Brown speech.

We invest so much importance in presidential speeches -- to which most people don't actually listen -- that for decades there has been a thriving industry of creating hypothetical presidential speeches, and writing letters and columns urging the president to speak out. It's a mystery.

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The Anti-Intellectual Presidency

John McWhorter reviews The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush, by Elvin T. Lim (Oxford University Press, 2008) --

Lim pays some lip service to larger trends but focuses on a narrower analysis, carefully posing that the increasing anti-intellectualism in presidential rhetoric resulted from a “tyranny of small decisions” effected by speechwriters and presidents taking their cue from the linguistic tone of the administrations preceding them. This analysis, however, can explain only so much. Truman may well have despaired of equaling Franklin Roosevelt’s eloquence and instead emphasized his own flinty straight-talking persona, while Lyndon Johnson was linguistically insecure and simply did not seek eloquence at all. This kind of analysis, however, fails to explain why in the nineteenth century even a plain-spoken ex-general such as Ulysses S. Grant pitched his official statements at the grand level, while a plain-spoken ex-general such as Dwight Eisenhower did not—or why Richard Nixon’s oratory was even more conversational than Lyndon Johnson’s.

The overarching explanation is the cultural context of an American culture that embraced informality in the 1920s and kept at it ever since. Clinton, for example, was not simply possessed with an animus toward flowery speech, and he certainly did not consciously decide to sound less formal than his notoriously inarticulate predecessor, George H.W. Bush. He was, instead, someone who had smoked pot in dormitories while listening to the kind of music that the parents in Bye Bye Birdie reviled—and that was the source of his rhetoric.

The review: John McWhorter, "A Rhetorical Question," First Things (October 2008).

The book: Elvin T. Lim, The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush, (Oxford University Press, 2008).

More reviews: Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed; David Broder, Washington Post;