Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Obama gives a bad speech . . .

. . . so let's hammer Bush's Second Inaugural Address. Rich has made George W. Bush's Second Inaugural a favorite punching bag. I have my reservations about it too, but over time the speech, and Bushism generally, hold their own (see pp. 228–30 of Right Time, Right Place). An America, or an American conservatism, that does not know its principles and its aspirations, and their grounding in human nature, does not know much, and risks being relegated to the clean-up crew role assigned to it by Sam Tanenhaus.

A good starting point for reflection on these matters, and also one of impeccable paleoconservative credentials, is The Ethics of Rhetoric, by Richard Weaver (1953). I discovered it the summer I interned at NR, 33 years ago. Chapters III and IV, "Edmund Burke and the Argument from Circumstance" and "Abraham Lincoln and the Argument from Definition," should be required reading.

A quick check on Amazon.com suggests that Weaver's book is out of print (my copy is an old Regnery paperback). A project for ISI?

09/23 10:41 PMShare