Monday, April 17, 2006

Myyyy Paper, not yours


I can honestly say I have been so confused on what exactly to write my paper about. I have gone back and forth quite a few times. I (unlike a majority of the class) am a George "Dubbya" Bush fan. I know I wanted to somehow incorpoate him into my paper somehow. I realized that I have been a pretty big fan of this president because of his conviction in his religion. So I figured thats a great place to start. I am going to write my paper on The presidency of Bush and his use of religious language. I am going to look at the positive aspects and negative aspects of having a president that uses religious language in a majority of his speeches. There are several comparisons made between Bush and Jimmy Carter and their similarities in religious belief's and differences in the way they incorporated it into their presidency. There is controversy over how Bush does not generalize with his refrences to relgion, but actually speaks very specifically on the topic and about his own personal beliefs. Bush is known to use this religious language not in just everyday talks/speeches, but in quite significant situations. He used several refrences to God in his state of the union address, when the space shuttle Columbia exploded, even in his presidential debates he has answered questions such as "what political philosopher could he most identify with" and he answers with Christ because "he changed his heart." He even begins cabinet meeting with a prayer. To help him with incorporating subtle religious language into his speeches he has gone even as far as to hire an evangelical christian, Gerson. People have gone as far to say that he sets us up for attack by using this language. So anyone who thinks that language may not be as powerful as most think, they should think again.

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