John F. Kennedy
Rhetorical context: The audience is a conservative political group that advocates smaller federal government and the right for local communities and states to control as much of their needed government as possible. The occasion is their annual meeting, and the purpose is to demonstrate that although Kennedy was a liberal in many ways, he was still a great, if flawed, man.
John F. Kennedy: the very name makes political conservatives cringe. However, his short role in the political history of the Presidency was so pivotal that is necessary to consider what kind of President he really was beyond the hype and the active public relations campaign that kept his many flaws out of the news media. Because the media remained silent about his personal flaws, the country was able to nearly canonize him after his untimely death.
He was a Liberal. Of that there is no doubt. He pondered how best to improve the rights of Negroes, and supported the idea of a larger government. That is the hidden message in his famous quote: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." He didn't ask us to help our local government or work at the state level. He wanted to expand federal government, of that there is no doubt.
And yet, in his short-term in office, he turned...
There are no props per se, although the presence of his youthful wife in the background might be one 'prop' as a reminder that the torch had been passed to a younger generation, from the older generation embodied by the Eisenhowers. Kennedy's athletic physique dominates the podium. But he does not use aggressive body language, like stretching across lectern which might make him seem as if he were overreaching
Rhetorical Situation Analysis: 1963 West Berlin SpeechIntroductionKennedy delivered the position of the democratic West in the 1963 Berlin Speech that challenged the world to stand with the US against the USSR in what had become the Cold War. The speech, composed in parts by Kennedy and members of his administration, represented the Democratic Party and its values of American idealism at a time when nuclear war with Russia had already
Wayne Booth is considered one of those principally responsible for the revival of the study of rhetoric, a skill that was valued by the Greeks in their debates and later re-visited by enlightenment-era neo-classicists. His concern for the matter couldn't have been more timely; the late 1950's and early 1960's saw the first televised debates (such as those between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon,) the popularity of shows such
REAL KENNEDY Shrouded in myth and mystery, John F. Kennedy is usually presented as a leader who could make a difference. He is seen as a man of character who wanted equal civil rights for blacks, effectively dealt with Cuban missile crisis, was a good father and had a perfect wife. Kennedy is even touted as the man who could direct the country to more prosperity had he not died
Kennedy also specifically directed his words to the leaders of the Soviet Union, alternating between vowing that America would bear any burden to advance the cause of freedom, yet noting that both 'enemies' have a mutual interest in limiting the arms race and preserving peace. "We dare not tempt them with weakness…But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course." Kennedy's address to
President Kennedy also used Aristotle's logic or logos to convince people to fight against public enemy such as poverty. JFK also used metaphor and the most famous sentence delivered after metaphor was "asks not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." (Nicholas, 2001 P. 283). The phrase was to appeal and persuade American people to devote their energy to the building
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