Rhetoric

The May 31 Op-ed Page article by Edwin M. Yoder Jr. and its headline, "Reagan's revised history of Vietnam," are examples of the type of journalism that led to the divisiveness that was largely responsible for the outcome of the war in Vietnam. The author chose to select a few phrases from a presidential Memorial Day speech at Arlington Cemetery to criticize the President for not going into greater detail when he noted that the burden of fighting the unpopular war fell to "the unpampered boys of the working class.

Chad Lewis majored in Chinese at Brigham Young. James Darling studied zoology at Washington State. Al Harris earned his degree in health and kinesiology at Texas A & M-Kingsville and Troy Vincent majored in landscape architecture at Wisconsin. Different and interesting majors, all, but plain and perhaps simple compared with what their Eagles teammate, John Welbourn, majored in at the University of California. Welbourn's area of expertise is so far off the beaten path of mainstream academic studies, it drew the quizzical attention of both Fox NFL commentators John Madden and Bill Maas during the Eagles' first two games.

The setting: the LOVE sculpture at JFK Plaza. The mood: tense, as District Attorney Lynne Abraham's campaign staff ran into supporters of challenger Alexander Talmadge yesterday, the same day the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations said it will monitor the primary battle's harsh rhetoric. The latest rhetoric victim: Vincent Thompson, Abraham's campaign spokesman. Sacaree Rhodes, an African-American activist and former social worker, was in the middle of a 1:30 p.m press conference at the plaza when she spotted Thompson, who was there to set up for a 2 p.m. press conference.

University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann said yesterday that public discourse in America is "saturated" with extremist rhetoric that deceives the public and may at times undermine democracy. Such discourse "insidiously undermines the democratic promise of mobilizing citizens on the basis of some reasonable understanding of their interest or the public interest," she said. Gutmann, who is writing a book on extremism, delivered her remarks in a city that is a hotbed of highly charged language.

RE THE educational philosophy of Elizabeth Collins ( "A Teacher Responds," June 16 ): I strongly agree that one purpose of education is to prepare students to apply knowledge to the real world. Where we differ is with her methods. Rhetorical writing requires not only questioning but strong evidence. I read the "model" speech on her blog, and it lacks that essential quality. What she wrote would have been a great op-ed, but it was, like the president's speech the other night, unpersuasive.

"You dogs, you cannot hide! And when you are found, it will be the worst day you can possibly imagine!" Rush Limbaugh told his radio listeners last Thursday, back when he and other Americans thought - wished, more likely - that those responsible for the carnage in Oklahoma City were foreigners. Others. " . . . And if we trace it to a particular nation, what about hitting the nation anyway, even if we don't know who exactly did it?" What happens now, Rush? Do we hit ourselves?

The agreement by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold talks linking cuts in nuclear weapons with U.S. plans for national missile defense is a diplomatic breakthrough for the new administration. Along with the Genoa G-8 summit, it demonstrates that rhetoric depicting impending disaster in European-American relations has been mistaken. In the initial frenzy over the death penalty, missile defense, the Kyoto global warming treaty, and the coming to office of a new American President depicted as a primitive and reckless Texan, many truths were ignored.

I agree with University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann that extremist rhetoric is undermining the country's ability to solve its political issues ("Public discourse suffering from extreme rhetoric," June 23). Hard problems can only be solved when citizens get past rhetoric and make it their business to understand the issues. Politicians know that citizens live in ignorance and that there is little push-back to spin and emotional rhetoric. But emotional rhetoric just generates anger, demonizes the opposition, and deflects attention from the hard work of finding the truth.

Bureaucrat-bashing and anti-government rhetoric, staples of presidential campaigns for two decades, are out of style. Political advisers have told candidates that those messages no longer work, and both the Republicans and the Democrats are taking the advice. In contrast to Ronald Reagan's rallying cry of "get the government off our backs," Bob Dole says: "The government is here to stay. " Unlike George Wallace's mocking references to "pointy-headed bureaucrats," George Bush proclaims that government workers are "some of the best people in the world.

American voters will choose between two candidates this election year. One inspires hope for a brighter, better tomorrow. His rhetoric makes us feel we are, indeed, one nation indivisible - indivisible by ideology or religion, indivisible by race or creed. It is rhetoric of hope and change and possibility. It's inspiring. This candidate can make you just plain feel good to be American. The other candidate, by contrast, is one of the Senate's fiercest partisans. This senator reflexively sides with the party's extreme wing.

In advance of a critical budget session next week, City Council members pressed the School Reform Commission Thursday to back away from a warning that the city schools may be unable to open next fall without $94 million in new funds from city real estate taxes. But the commission chairman, Pedro Ramos, politely stood his ground. "We're at a crossroads … and it feels like there's a big pile of cans sitting there in the middle of the road, and it's every can that's been kicked down the road to this point," Ramos told Council members.

EXETER, N.H. - Eyeing the November election, Vice President Biden on Thursday called presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney "out of touch" and "out of step" with history and basic American values. Biden also opened a new line of attack, introducing the "Romney rule" and contrasting it with President Obama's push for the "Buffet rule" to force rich people to pay more of their income in taxes. The measure, named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, says the wealthy should not pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-class wage-earners.

Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation By Elaine Pagels Viking. 246 pp. $27.95. Reviewed by Hal Taussig Elaine Pagels is perhaps the preeminent voice of biblical scholarship to the American public. With the best yet of her finely tuned prose for the general reader, her new book, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation , takes a significant step closer to confirming her in that role. Turning her attention to biblical writings in a more focused manner than in any previous book, Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University, again rewards her readers with clear reports from scholarship and cogent analogies from contemporary American life.

WASHINGTON - As President Obama prepares to deliver his annual address to Congress, many goals he outlined in previous State of the Union speeches remain unfulfilled. From reforming immigration laws to meeting monthly with congressional leaders of both parties, the promises fell victim to congressional opposition or fell behind other priorities. For Obama, like presidents before him, the State of the Union is an opportunity like no other to state his case on a grand stage, before both houses of Congress and a prime-time television audience.

Newt Gingrich said African Americans should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. Rick Santorum said he didn't want to better black people's lives by giving them somebody else's money. Then both said they had been misunderstood. But Marc Morial said he got the message - and he didn't like it. "The racial stereotypes are intolerable," said Morial, president of the National Urban League. "I don't think just African Americans get tired of it; I think all decent-thinking people get tired of it. " What is it with presidential campaigns and racial rhetoric?

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - An icy wind scoured the parking lot of the Hy-Vee supermarket, ruffling Mitt Romney's perfect hair as he urged about 500 rain-soaked people to stand up for him in Tuesday's Republican caucuses. "I need your help, you guys," Romney said Friday over the gale. "This is a real battle - it's a battle for the future course of America. I don't want politicians running America anymore. I want to make sure that we have citizen leaders going to Washington . . . fighting for the soul of this great country.

By Clive Crook The Democrats have decided to make inequality a central issue in next year's elections. I'd question whether that's good politics. Even in hard times, American voters aren't easily persuaded by appeals to class interests. Yet even setting electoral tactics aside, focusing on inequality seems unlikely to lead to better policy, especially considering how current U.S. policies stack up against those of other advanced economies. That's because inequality isn't one issue, but a writhing bundle of issues.

Jim Geraghty is a contributing editor at National Review Judging from President Obama's rhetoric in recent weeks, he seems deeply concerned about back pain among key voter demographics. Speaking before the American Legion's national convention in Minneapolis, Obama thundered: "We cannot, we will not, and we must not balance our budget on the back of military veterans. " While visiting Johnson Controls in Holland, Mich., on Aug. 11, he said: "We're not going to balance our budgets on the back of middle-class and working people in this country.

WASHINGTON - After sharply escalating its criticism of Syria's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, the Obama administration has abruptly scaled back its condemnations, injecting fresh uncertainty about its willingness to confront President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared last week that Assad's government had "lost legitimacy," diplomatic language that implied a break with Syria. Analysts said they expected the White House to demand Assad's ouster, as it did earlier this year with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

What do you think about Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman's managing to save full-day kindergarten with an 11th-hour power move of Title I funds? I applaud her for acting quickly, because it means working parents won't have to worry all summer about whether their kindergartners will fall behind, not to mention how they would find and pay for child care should their kids be relegated to half-days. But what about the other must-haves on the chopping block given the district's $629 million budget deficit: teachers, nurses, summer school, bus service, tokens, arts programs, and who knows what else?