Rhetorical Analysis Of Bush's Speeches

One key figure of speech that runs through the discourse of Bush’s rhetoric throughout his presidential career is that of metaphors of friendship. The term friend(s) is used very liberally in Bush’s speeches, sometimes alone, sometimes along with the term allies as the examples below show:
“I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council before committing troops to Iraq” “We will hunt them by day and by night in every corner of the world until they are no longer a threat to America and our friends” “I want to thank our friends from Poland” “I want to thank the Amir of Qatar, with whom I just met, for his hospitality and for his friendship to the United States of America”
“Qatar, the
The use of the term friend(s) is metaphorical in the sense that it is a term describing relations between humans, transferred to describe relations between nations and organizations. An example of this is the Bush, Mar 17, 2003 speech, where Bush says “The regime […] has a deep hatred for America and our friends”. Here we find that “America” is personified by virtue of the transfer of meaning. the contradiction between “The regime” and “America” where “The Regime”, by virtue of agency, is linked to the negative emotion of hatred, while “America” is linked to the positive connotations of the words “friends” and “friendship”. These metaphors serve both as a personification fitting the “United We Stand” political myth and the Appeal for uniting legitimization strategy and