A Rhetorical Analysis Of President Bush Speech On 9/11

In 2001, the United States of America witnessed its largest tragedy to date. America had been sucker-punched in the back of the head that fateful September 11th morning by an Islamic extremist group known as al-Qaeda. The attacks involved nineteen men who highjacked a series of commercial airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, and a field in Pennsylvania. New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania became the final resting place of thousands of people as a result. This amount of devastation scared and shook the American public to their core. The future of this once great nation was now unclear. In order to combat the fear amongst the American population, President George W. Bush spoke to the nation on live television the same night of the …show more content…
The American public was terrified for their safety when the saw the airplanes bombard into the towers. Parents were picking their children up early from school and people were hiding in their basements, all because they did not know where or when the next attack would be. This was a topic of great concern in President Bush’s speech when he mentions all the government and himself are doing for these frightened people. Bush was able to build a trust with the audience when he said, “I implemented our government 's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it 's prepared… we are taking every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks.” Telling the people that they were the president’s and the government’s first priority reassure a number of people that they were being secured. Finishing the paragraph by stating, “The functions of our government continue without interruption,” Bush was trying to persuade citizens to have faith that the government was doing everything it could to keep them as safe as