Rhetorical Analysis

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Pamela Kipe Mr. Harris AP Language & Composition November 21, 2014 Rhetorical Analysis Portfolio Project - Frank Rich 9/11 Reflection Year after year when 9/11 comes around, Americans demonstrate their love for their country in patriotic lengths. Flags at half-staff, hundreds flocking to the symbiotic Ground Zero, where just thirteen years ago stood the roaring World Trade Towers, the monetary heart of New York City. Frank Rich proclaims his proposition, in an essay in New York Magazine, on how the attacks on 9/11 did not unify our country, despite the fact that that was supposedly former President George Bush’s objective, but rather ripped us apart. Rich’s use of a formal yet sarcastic tone accompanied with his diction and verifiable facts he gathered demonstrates just how 9/11 did not bring us together as a nation. “National unity proved to be short-lived,” is right. Frank Rich, an essayist writing for a popular magazine, is aware that his tone should help portray his argument; that America has wasted an opportunity to come together as a nation. His tone throughout the essay portrays a sarcastic voice alongside a sometimes more serious and formal approach. As demonstrated when Rich writes, “So devilishly clever was the selling of the Saddam-for-Osama bait-and-switch that almost half the country would come to believe that Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers.” The sarcastic part, “devilishly clever,” of Bush’s plan to “sell” Saddam for Osama illustrates that Frank Rich believes it was not the right thing to do, hence it didn’t help bring America together. A more serious use of diction and tone is displayed when he brings up, “The righteous anger of the right had moved on to the cause of taking down a president with the middle name Hussein.” Democrats, instead of supporting President Obama in his plan to destroy Al-Qaeda and kill their leader, went
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