I feel like this is a modern art installation waiting to happen... a White House press room podium staffed by ELIZA.

I'm fascinated that you think my post makes McClellan seem "the second coming of Cicero." From that, and the balance of your post, I think you may be operating with a limited definition of rhetoric. You might check here for a list of four possibilities: http://www.rhetorica.net/textbook/intro.htm

Rhetoric, among other things, is a practical art of persuasion (positive and negative). From the point of view I use in my post, rhetoric as McClellan uses it is the art of stopping discourse through message discipline. And he does just that. He just kills it. That was his purpose. He achieved it through exactly the rhetorical maneuvers you discuss here.

If it works, it's good rhetoric.

Message discipline isn't a different ball game. Aristotle's _On Rhetoric_ is nothing if not a treatise on message discipline.

That's one of the hardest ideas my students wrestle with: that good (i.e. it works) rhetoric can also be insipid, that it isn't always (nor necessarily needs to be) the sublime.

I completely understand your frustration with my post. And I don't necessarily disagree. I'm simply operating here with a different POV because it suits my rhetorical intentions, which, BTW, have nothing to do with praising McClellan.

Thanks for the link. Please visit my comments. I'm glad to have found your site!

Touch And thanks for the thoughtful comment. And thanks for bolding your italics, because if there's anything more beautiful than Garamond Italic, it's Garamond Bold Italic, which we don't see as often around here.

But I remain unconvinced. I can't claim to have ever taught Aristotle, but it seems to me he treats rhetoric as a tool and persuasion as an end. I would argue with the characterization of McClellan's performance yesterday as persuasive. If anything, it seemed spectacularly unpersuasive. A child could read that transcript and parse the dogged avoidance in McClellan's responses.

Even taking your criterion for rhetorical success -- stopping discourse -- I think McClellan clearly failed. True, the discourse never advanced beyond a very basic point. However, it marched to that point again, and again, and again, and again, despite all his best efforts to kill it. The press corps dealt McClellan no fewer than 35 questions on the Rove matter, 34 questions after he made the first attempt to, as you say, stop discourse. It would seem to me that a more skillful rhetorician would have concocted responses so circuitous and devious and propagandistic that he would have silenced the questioners early on.

By McClellan's standard of stopping discourse, repeating "No comment" 35 times would be a stunning display of rhetoric. And I'm not sure I buy that.

Cross-posted to Rhetorica.

Victory might be the ultimate or minimal goal of rhetoric, but the quality of rhetoric is evaluated according to its ability to teach, delight, and move. But Matt hits on a more basic quality of rhetoric that McClellan's answers lack: from Aristotle through Cicero, Quintillian, and the Church fathers, the most essential aspect of rhetoric is that it is an art that hides itself. This is why Cicero compares the art of the orator with that of the actor: the actor needs to make his speech appear smooth and to a certain extent, unstudied. When we identify rhetoric's obvious techniques and intent, it loses its charm and appeal. That's why the press meta-comments ("Scott, this is ridiculous") are actually quite striking and effective.

In general, I think the Press Corps gets the better of McClellan here, since they make it obvious that he's just stonewalling and do get him in some pretty tight rhetorical traps. My favorite is towards the end, when a questioner walks McClellan back through his claims: after he and GWB made comments on the investigation, one or more of the investigators asked The White House not to comment on it, which is why McC can't answer questions -- and McClellan says he can't comment, because it's part of an investigation! Hilarious.

Matt... So does that mean I used bad rhetoric? :-)

Well, yes.

Is 35 times too many? Would one time have signaled a better rhetorical performance? That's interesting to think about. My evaluation rests on what happened: He stopped the discourse. Could he have done it "better." Depending upon what one means by that, the answer is certainly "yes."

Tim...

I have no romantic illusions about my discipline. Who won? McClellan. He achieved his perlocutionary intention. The press did not. No one cares that he was put on the spot. That's already yesterday's news.

My concern is far less with McClellan than with the press. My evoking his skill is a rhetorical maneuver in itself. While it has sparked this interesting exchange, and led me to this interesting weblog, it's really only a route to the point.

One of the things I love about rhetoric is how many things it really is and how different it is through the ages based upon the people and cultures that employ it. I also love how constant it is :-)

Two thoughts:

1) McClellan's job, and the purpose of whatever rhetorical skills he employs, isn't just to stop the discourse in the press room. It's also to stop or at least slow the story. This is what makes his job different from Karl Rove's lawyer's. When Rove's lawyer dropped that "never knowingly disclosed classified information" line, he successfully defended his client, but what was effectively a negative admission to the press became a huge news story. Since his back-and-forth was the first headline of today's Times, I doubt we could call his performance perlocutionarily successful at all.

2) In general, I'm less likely than I think you are to collapse the rhetorical tradition and the theory of speech acts. All speech may have a rhetorical element, but the kind of speech involved in law, politics, preaching, and other kinds of explicitly and formal persuasive settings has a different character, because (among other things) the relationship with the audience is different. Furthermore, there are distinct differences within this field based on context. Clinton's legalistic maneuverings during his impeachment trial were a legal success but a political nadir: it let the opposition paint a picture. If the Democrats can spin the GOP's plain-folks image to make them appear sneaky, secretive, evasive, and underhanded, then McClellan is hardly doing his job.

Tim re:

1. Agreed. But rhetoric is always open to re-evaluation. It was today's headline. But will it be tomorrow's? I'm wondering if he succeeds in the end. I suspect he might. But I could be wrong.

2. I'm working on an essay now about accounting for the role of rhetoric in the illocutionary act. So, yes.

BTW, on a lighter note, I once wrote a humorous academic essay (an oxymoron?) comparing Clinton's rhetoric in his testimony (re: Monica...depends on what the meaning of is is) with Richard III. The title: Now is the Winter of Our Discomfiture Made an Odious Bummer by this Son of Hope :-)

I've added you to the blogroll. Later...