Imagining the Enemy:
American Presidential War Rhetoric
from Woodrow Wilson to George Walker Bush.

In the American system of government there is no single more powerful voice than of the president. No other American politician, apart from his vice-presidential running mate, is elected by the entire nation, and no other government office can compete with the presidency in terms of prestige and public reverence. The American public has what Jeffery Cohen has labeled “an appetite for presidential leadership,” and is often critical of presidents who are slow to offer such leadership. Moreover, the leadership they expect is not merely the fulfillment of the president’s constitutional role, but also a form of popular rhetorical leadership. This is particularly true since the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. The American public does not make comparable demands for leadership from any other public official.

The president’s ability to shape social and political reality is even greater in times of international crisis or war, when a number of factors combine to augment the power of their rhetoric. While there is a widespread tendency for the American public to be skeptical of rhetoric, in times of crisis and uncertainty they demand it, particularly of their presidents. Americans look to the president to interpret events, to reassure, and to inspire. They not only want the president to explain calamitous events and articulate a response, but to offer a larger vision and purpose for America.

The American people seek presidential leadership also out of a belief that “the President knows best.” As a consequence, presidents legitimize the definition of a situation as a foreign crisis by the very act of publicly giving voice to it. Perhaps more importantly, once a foreign crisis, particularly a state of war, has been proclaimed it becomes difficult to attack the president’s definition of the situation. During periods of foreign crisis and war, criticism of the commander-in-chief can become, if not treason, at least fundamentally un-American. During a crisis, all the factors discussed above combine to ensure that it is essentially presidential rhetoric that becomes political reality. Thus, in times of war, how the president defines the enemy becomes, for a majority of Americans, how the enemy actually “is.”

Contents

238 pages. Paperback.                                                                $22.95.