Rhetoric of Obama and his Mic

 I will never understand how for the second time Barack Obama has been caught speaking off the record while his mic was still on. The first time was bad enough when he was speaking to French President Nikolas Sarkozy about how hard it was to deal with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How President Obama wiggled his way out of that awkward situation I will never know, but now for the second time he has been caught. This time he was caught talking to current Russia President Medvedev about his future career as President. President Obama was trying to bargain and reassure Medvedev about the new missile defense system, which is great, but it should be left behind doors. This should absolutely not be talked about literally right in front of the spotlight.  I really want to see how President Obama tries to talk his way out of this situation.  

            Immediately after finding out about his mistake, Obama played it off as a necessary part of politics. He tried to say that such bargaining is very crucial to the implementation of international policy. This is absolutely true, but he missed the part where that was not the time or place for that bargaining. Presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney attempted to take advantage of the situation by tearing down Obama for making such a mistake. This was a clear move to garner more votes from the far right, but in the end it was to no avail. Mitt Romney overplayed the issue, and in the end he looked like the bad guy. So instead of the media looking at Obama’s mistake, they focused on Mitt Romney’s clear over-step. This seems to be the only way Obama was let off the hook. It was not his own words, as some could argue his answer was merely a generic response, but it was his enemy that took away the spotlight.  Obama was just lucky that Romney over-stepped his boundary, and in the end it will only be Romney’s ethos that will really take a hit.

Rhetoric of Why the Grass is always Greener

What does that old saying mean “the grass is always greener”? Well in general it means that no matter what position you are in presently, there is always some place elsewhere that is better. So why is the grass greener? The grass is greener because it is a signal of hope. When people are having a sub-par day they can always think to themselves that their lives will be just as good as the places that they dream of. In a time of economic turmoil and constant fighting, I can guarantee that a lot of Americans have been thinking about where the greener grass is, and why wouldn’t they? Dreaming about faraway places give people the hope they need to continue working. Without the hope of living a better a life, there is no point to living. Without that hope people wouldn’t fight for freedom or work those 2 or 3 jobs to get their kids through school. Hope is what drives the core human need to better themselves. To humans, nothing is ever good enough. There are will always be problems. That distant tropical island with a beautiful beach has mosquitoes with the West Nile Virus and stands in the middle of hurricane season. By dreaming, people forget their problems because problems are infectious to the mind. Dreams are meant to be happy, and problems destroy happiness faster than Palin destroyed McCain’s campaign. Happiness is the source upon which hope exists. Hope is the sole driving force of continuing to live, and that is why the grass is always greener.

The Rhetoric behind Kony 2012

This week I watched the video behind Kony 2012. This is quite an interesting and new way to approach the problem of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Africa. It seems that the creator behind this network and campaign took a whole new approach to tackle his problem. Initially, he met with the children of Uganda, and that is where he saw the effects of Kony’s terror in Uganda. He saw that Kony would kidnap and force children to fight in his army. He had been doing this for years, but the creator of Kony 2012 became determined to stop it. In the beginning he took the same routes that many other people with problems had done before; he went to the U.S. government. But the US government could not and would not send aid to Uganda. This is the point where most people give up, but instead of giving up, Kony 2012 was created. This campaign was created to bring attention to Kony and the terrible acts he has committed against the children of Uganda. This innovative campaign has become very successful, and recently the U.S. sent several military advisers to Uganda in order to help them capture Kony. The next part of this campaign is very critical. The creator set a time limit for Kony’s capture. He set midnight of December 31^st as the deadline for Kony’s capture. He understands that without a timeframe for the articulated goal people will lose interest, and Kony understands this even better. Kony’s main strategy now is to evade capture long enough for the world to forget about him. Most campaigns these days revolve around sweeping generalizations, such as “Cure World Hunger” or “World Peace”, which will be accomplished some amorphous day in the future. The problem is that people aren’t as dedicated to these campaigns because they have no end in sight, and that is why it was critical to that the creator of Kony 2012 set a deadline. This is the number one reason why Kony 2012 is as successful as it is, and I can only assume that it will continue to become more popular as that deadline approaches.

Rhetoric of SEAL Team 6

Earlier this week I read an account of the killing of Bin Laden by the commander of the SEAL Team 6. The main reason why the commander released his own account was because he felt that the description of the event as released to the public by politicians was very different from how it actually occurred. SEAL Team 6 felt that the politicians had portrayed them as a kill squad, and as one of the SEALs stated, “I’ve been a Seal for 30 years and I never heard the words ‘kill mission’,” he said. “It’s a Beltway [Washington insider’s] fantasy word. If it was a kill mission you don’t need SEAL Team 6; you need a box of hand grenades.”

            In addition to being angry that they had been labeled as a kill team, SEAL Team 6 was also upset that all of the intelligence they had gathered at the Bin Laden compound was rendered irrelevant when President Obama went on national TV to declare his death. All other high-officials of the al-Qaeda network would have immediately left their hiding places for new ones. Any potential leads that the team had acquired at the compound to capture these criminals immediately became useless as a result of the President’s public announcement. The Team felt that the public announcement should have been held off for a couple of days for other branches of the military to attempt to pursue those lead developed at the compound. Unfortunately, instead it became a political game of who could claim credit for the kill first.

The SEAL account raises the question, why did the politicians on Capitol Hill do what they did in releasing the information prematurely if they knew it wasn’t in the best interest of the country? Why would they label the team as killers, when in fact the only people to die were the ones who pointed guns at the SEALs? The truth is that all of the politicians on Capitol Hill are solely looking out for their own political careers. They don’t care about who gets hit in the crossfire so long as they come out looking like victors. Their primary concern is their own reputation and electability. The only reason that President Obama went on the air was to be glorified as the President that killed Obama. He didn’t want anyone else to deliver the news, even if there was a possibility to completely unhinge the al-Qaeda network. Although this posturing is a shame, it should only be expected as business as usual in Washington.