George W. Bush’s “Farewell Address to the Nation”, Research Paper Example

George W. Bush’s “Farewell Address to the Nation” is part of the tradition of final speeches that outgoing presidents give to the country. Amidst Bush’s low popularity ratings at the time of the address, the rhetorical aim of Bush’s speech can be interpreted as a final attempt to clarify some of the decisions of his presidency with the intent of establishing a justification for a future positive account of his legacy. Thus, crucial to Bush’s address is a defense of his policy decisions, in order to combat the general negative perceptions of his presidency.  The tone of Bush’s address can therefore be conceived as a reflective account concerning the precise meaning of his presidency, however a reflective tone that ultimately attempts to justify his presidency. Bush uses an abundance of rhetorical methods and techniques to make this case. Particularly, rhetoric is used to elaborate Bush’s central thesis that his entire presidency must be viewed in terms of the September 11^th terrorist attacks. Accordingly, his policy decisions are reflections of the ethos of his presidency understood as the commitment to defending America. The pathos of his speech attempts to garner the sympathy of the listeners to his cause. The logos of his speech is based on the notion that 9-11 is the central historical fact of his presidency, a fact that determines his subsequent policy positions. Accordingly, induction and deduction are central to the speech. In terms of induction, for Bush, the fact that there was a September 11^th terrorist attack suggests the possibility of further attacks: hence, his policies must counteract this possibility. In terms of deduction, the general premise of his presidency is that America is engaged in a “war on terror”: from this thesis, one can then understand all his subsequent actions. In addition, Bush uses comparison to establish the difficulty of the historical task he was faced with, while concomitantly attempting to secure his own place in history.

Bush’s speech begins with an appraisal of his time in office as a particularly exceptional moment in American history. As Bush notes, “the first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence, a time set apart.” (Bush, 1) This statement can be viewed as an attempt to establish the fact that an exceptional difficulty was constitutive of the overall historical period in which he was president. Accordingly, Bush intimates that all attempts to judge his presidency must take into account this very difficulty. That is, the factual evidence suggests that a specific logic is needed to evaluate Bush’s time in office according to the exceptionality of his time in office. This exceptionality thus acts as a deductive premise for Bush: all policy decisions must be construed as being deduced from this exceptionality. At the same time, this can be viewed as an attempt to generate pathos in the audience towards his position: the audience should not be so critical of Bush, to the extent that he was faced with an extraordinarily different task.

In the speech, this general difficulty of Bush’s time in office is traced back to the September 11^th, 2001 terrorist attacks. The speech construes 9-11 as the defining moment of his presidency, insofar as it is the first historical event referenced within the speech: this event establishes the logos for the remainder of Bush’s address. The specific number of techniques used in the crucial section of the speech in which Bush introduces 9-11 are staggering. Bush immediately evokes a comparison between his farewell address and when he addressed the nation on 9-11, as both speeches occur in the House. This effectively establishes a link between the farewell address and the crucial moment of the Bush presidency, as, in essence, the farewell address must only be thought according to the September 11^th, address – since this address is historically viewed as a positive moment in Bush’s presidency, the comparison therefore would attempt to cement Bush’s overall reputation. Furthermore, comparison is utilized as 9-11 is compared to the Pearl Harbour attacks: this comparison evokes the grave historical importance of the situation Bush faced. Accordingly, in a subtextual manner, Bush compares himself to Roosevelt, the president at the time of Pearl Harbour: In this comparison, Bush presents the image of himself as a persona of great historical importance.

Such utilization of comparison is immediately supplemented by the technique of pathos in order to make the audience re-live the horror of 9-11. Phrases such as “brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors” (Bush, 4) attempt to create a unity amongst the people through the evocation of a general American heroism. The reference to specific personages, such as Arlene Howard and her son who died during the attacks, are also clear attempts at pathos, insofar as they intend to evoke feelings of sentimentality in the audience. At the same time, Bush maintains his own centrality to this situation: he is “standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center” and his response to the pathos is clear: “I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.” (Bush, 4) Bush’s utilization of pathos endeavors to make the listener re-live the grief of 9-11; accordingly, they are to feel sympathy towards Bush’s position as president during such terrible times.

Furthermore, the pathos of 9-11 establishes an inductive premise: inasmuch as there was a terrorist attack, it is possible to conceive of other terrorist attacks. It thus becomes necessary to prevent any further attacks. Bush therefore implies that Americans must understand all his subsequent policy decisions following this logic: Bush’s policy decisions were done to protect the American people, to prevent another 9-11. Accordingly, this is the ethos of the Bush presidency: his ethical commitments were the result of a desire to protect the American people. Bush will thus assume the persona of the defender of the people: he is the president who will prevent any such terrorist attack from happening again. like those he mentioned who died on 9-11.

With the logos and ethos of his historical presidency established, Bush then provides a summary of his policy decisions. Ranging from the War on Iraq to the Patriot Act, Bush summarizes all these policy decisions in relation to September 11^th. Whereas Bush makes an appeal to the fact that his decisions remain questionable in the public imagination, thus implying that such criticism is consistent with the very fundamental principles of democracy, he nevertheless concludes that both his logic and ethos were correct: “There’s legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil.” (Bush, 6) Insofar as Bush sets out to define his entire presidency according to 9-11, the fact that there was not another terrorist attack is the logical justification for all of his actions. Starting from the premise that his aim was to prevent further terrorist attacks and that no such subsequent terrorist attacks occurred during his presidency, Bush can logically deduce the success of his presidency according to its realization of the initial premise. Despite such bravura, Bush nevertheless concludes the speech with various examples of humility, such as “It has been the privilege of your lifetime to serve as your President” (Bush, 21)  to evoke pathos in the audience. Other examples of pathos include conceding the bravery of the U.S. soldiers, alongside the notion that he has been “blessed to represent this nation we love.” (Bush, 21) The address thus concludes with Bush’s evocation of his persona as humble servant of the American people.

The success of Bush’s farewell address can be gauged entirely in terms of his decision to place the September 11^th, 2001 attacks as central to his discourse. These attacks immediately generate the logos, ethos and pathos of Bush’s presidency. His logic and ethical commitments are to prevent further terrorist attacks; pathos is evoked by recalling these attacks, and subsequently by considering Bush’s persona as one committed to preventing these attacks. Of course, what is immediately insufficient about this approach is its utter simplification of political and historical processes. Bush’s logic that begins from a policy decision to stop 9-11 can thus be used to justify any type of policy decision, according to the assumption of a particular ethos. Policy in Bush’s speech is thus simplified: there is no acknowledgment of events outside of the logos of 9-11. For example, Katrina, which was a political disaster for Bush (Luow, 97), is only mentioned in passing, in the reference to “Dr. Tony Recasner, a principal who opened a new charter school from the ruins of Hurricane Katrina.” (Bush, 18) In essence, the logos of Bush’s farewell address cannot account for anything outside of the deductive chain of reasoning that is established as beginning from 9-11.  Nevertheless, when considering that Bush’s audience is the American people, perhaps this audience does not deserve anything more. Bush was elected twice as President: “The people get the leader they deserve.” In this regard, Bush’s speech is merely a reflection of the audience that voted for him: it is precisely such populist simplification in the forms of the utilization of facile deductive logic, constant appeals to pathos, etc., which the public responds to, as evidenced by the aforementioned re-election of Bush in 2004. Insofar as the success of rhetorical speech can be measured in terms of its persuasion of the audience, we can state that perhaps the audience has already been persuaded: Bush’s rhetorical discourse merely supplements the ideological beliefs of the majority of the populace.