%0 Journal Article
%T War legitimation discourse: Representing 'Us' and 'Them' in four US presidential addresses
%J Discourse and society
%D 2011
%A Oddo, John
%V 22
%N 3
%P 287-314
%X This article presents an intertextual analysis of legitimation in four 'call-to-arms' speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. Drawing on Thibault's (1991) account of critical intertextual analysis, I identify key legitimation strategies and thematic formations that underlie the rhetoric of both speakers. In addition, I (re)situate the speeches in their wider social and historical context to demonstrate how both presidents manipulated the public. In the analysis, I first examine how both speakers use polarizing lexical resources to constitute 'Us' and 'Them' as superordinate thematic categories that covertly legitimate war. Next, I analyze how representations of the past and future also function to legitimate violence across the four speeches. Finally, I examine how both presidents demarcate group membership to discredit opponents of war at home, and legitimate violence against non-aggressors abroad. I conclude that, in spite of popular mythology, Bush is not an aberrant American president; he is one of many to have misled the public into war.<p />
%G 
%I SAGE Publishing
%@ 0957-9265
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0957926510395442