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On a gray day in June of 2002, President Bush delivered a pivotal commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy. The president employed this occasion to announce a new preemptive doctrine that would guide U.S. foreign policy and ultimately serve as a rationale for the Iraq War. In choosing to deliver a commencement address at one of the nation's most venerable military academies, Bush found a perfect match for the rhetorical situation he faced and for the rhetorical situation he was trying to shape. The epideictic occasion was perfectly suited to Bush's epideictic goals, which were central in establishing a moral framework for his new foreign policy doctrine. There was an eloquence to the speech and a high-mindedness that had the potential to serve the president and the nation well.
In the end, however, I maintain that this same epideictic discourse was neither enough to sustain a cogent and compelling rationale for war with Iraq nor, in the final analysis, able to confront or overcome some compelling factual evidence that would drain support for the president's monumental efforts. To advance this argument, I will (1) provide a rhetorical and political context for the speech that will aid in the interpretation and analysis of the address; (2) discuss the nature of epideictic address and appropriate a unique reading of epideictic theory to its particularized enactment in the West Point commencement address; (3) interpret and account for the rhetorical themes and strategies contained within the address; and finally, (4) try to highlight some of the significant rhetorical and political implications of presidential epideictic address under the particularized circumstances of the post-9/11 era and an ongoing but increasingly unpopular war.
Approaching West Point: A Rhetorical and Political Context
Just three months after the September 11, 2001, (9/11) terrorist attacks on the United States, it was clear that the president was in the process of reorienting and retooling his entire military and foreign policy to conform with a changed global environment. In remarks at the Citadel on December 11, 2001, we glimpse the evolving rationale for a new doctrine of preemption. Bush argued that the new terrorist threat posed a significant challenge to the United States and the changed circumstances demanded nothing less than major reforms "essential to victory...