Abstract

AbstractPresidential libraries and museums are important sites for understanding the rhetorical construction of presidential legacies in the United States. The newest of these institutions is the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. The museum assists in the rhetorical redemption of a historically maligned presidency, anchoring President Bush’s legacy in the virtues of masculine, authoritative leadership. This is aided in particular by a noteworthy focus on baseball as a mythic expression of American exceptionalism, most dramatically featured in a 2015 temporary exhibit called Baseball: America’s Presidents, America’s Pastime. Far from being simply a colorful metaphor for national identity, baseball celebrates Bush’s moral authority and links him to the legacy of previous presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt. In short, the exhibit makes clear that one cannot understand the Bush presidency without baseball.

Journal
Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Published
2019-03-01
DOI
10.14321/rhetpublaffa.22.1.0001
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

References (95) · 1 in this index

  1. 1. Paul Blest, “The False Resurrection of George W. Bush: Don’t Be Fooled by Calls to Reassess His Loathsome …
  2. 2. The rhetorical literature on public memory is robust. Some representative studies that directly assess pre…
  3. 3. Benjamin Hufbauer, Presidential Temples: How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory (Lawrence: Univer…
  4. 4. Sara A. Mehltretter Drury and Dale A. Herbeck, “Remembering and Re-Creating the Great Debates of 1960: Pre…
  5. 5. “About Us,” George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.georgewbushlibrary.smu.edu/en/Abou…
Show all 95 →
  1. 6. Michael L. Butterworth, Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity: The National Pastime and American Identity durin…
  2. 7. James C. Roberts, The Nationals Past Times: The History and New Beginning of Baseball in Washington, D.C. …
  3. 8. Nick Trujillo, “Baseball, Business, Politics, and Privilege: An Interview with George W. Bush,” Management…
  4. 9. Butterworth, Baseball and Rhetorics of Purity, 5.
  5. 10. Michael L. Butterworth, “Purifying the Body Politic: Steroids, Rafael Palmeiro, and the Rhetorical Cleans…
  6. 11. This idea found traction both before and after the Bush presidency. For a representative example, see Mat…
  7. 12. Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996).
  8. 13. Robert L. Ivie and Oscar Giner, Hunt the Devil: A Demonology of US War Culture (Tuscaloosa: University of…
  9. 14. Jason Gilmore, Penelope Sheets, and Charles Rowling, “Make No Exception, Save One: American Exceptionalis…
  10. 15. David Weiss and Jason A. Edwards, “Introduction: American Exceptionalism’s Champions and Challengers,” in…
  11. 16. Vanessa B. Beasley, “A Presidential Rhetoric of Shared Beliefs,” in You, the People: American National Id…
  12. 17. Ivie and Giner, Hunt the Devil.
  13. 18. Janice Hocker Rushing, “The Rhetoric of the American Western Myth,” Communication Monographs 50 (1983): 15.
  14. 19. Leroy G. Dorsey, “The Frontier Myth in Presidential Rhetoric: Theodore Roosevelt’s Campaign for Conservat…
  15. 20. Richard Aquila, “Introduction: The Pop Culture West,” in Wanted Dead or Alive: The American West in Popul…
  16. 21. Leroy G. Dorsey, We Are All Americans, Pure and Simple: Theodore Roosevelt and the Myth of Americanism (T…
  17. 22. Ivie and Giner, Hunt the Devil. On the metaphor of the “last stand,” see especially 49–69.
  18. 23. Jacques Barzun, “God’s Country and Mine,” in Baseball as America: Seeing Ourselves through our National G…
  19. 24. Quoted in Richard C. Crepeau, Baseball: America’s Diamond Mind 1919–1941 (Orlando: University Presses of …
  20. 25. Michael L. Butterworth, “Saved at Home: Christian Branding and Faith Nights in the ‘Church of Baseball,’”…
  21. 26. Deeanne Westbrook, Ground Rules: Baseball and Myth (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996), 36
  22. and Tom Verducci, "Record Smasher: Mark McGwire Sent His 62nd Home Run over the Fence and Himself into a Spec…
  23. 27. Quoted in Ira Berkow, “The Green Fields of Bart’s Mind,” New York Times, September 2, 1989, http://www.ny…
  24. 28. For more on these ideas, see Michael L. Butterworth, "Ritual in the 'Church of Baseball': Suppressing the…
  25. and Jeffrey O. Segrave, "The Sports Metaphor in American Cultural Discourse," Culture, Sport, Society 3 (2000…
  26. 29. Robert Elias, The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way…
  27. 30. Elias, The Empire Strikes Out, 75.
  28. 31. For more on the Doubleday myth, see Elias; Frederick G. Lieb, The Baseball Story (New York: G. P. Putnam’…
  29. 32. Kristina Horn Sheeler and Karrin Vasby Anderson, Woman President: Confronting Postfeminist Political Cult…
  30. 33. Nick Trujillo, “Hegemonic Masculinity on the Mound: Media Representations of Nolan Ryan and American Spor…
  31. 34. Greg Dickinson, Carole Blair, and Brian L. Ott, “Introduction: Rhetoric/Memory/Place,” in Places of Publi…
  32. 35. In addition to those cited above who have focused on presidential politics, other rhetorical scholars hav…
  33. Carole Blair, Marsha S. Jeppeson, and Enrico Pucci Jr., "Public Memorializing in Postmodernity: The Vietnam V…
  34. Victoria J. Gallagher, "Memory and Reconciliation in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute," Rhetoric & Publi…
  35. Bryan Hubbard and Marouf A. Hasian Jr., "Atomic Memories of the Enola Gay: Strategies of Remembrance at the N…
  36. and Kenneth S. Zagacki and Victoria J. Gallagher, "Rhetoric and Materiality in the Museum Park at the North C…
  37. Rhetoric & Public Affairs
  38. 37. S. W. Pope, “Olympic Spectacles and the Redemption of the Amateur Ethos,” in Patriotic Games: Sporting Tr…
  39. 38. Ronald Smith, Sports and Freedom: The Rise of Big-Time College Athletics (New York: Oxford University Pre…
  40. 39. J. J. MacAloon, “The Olympic Idea,” International Journal of the History of Sport 23 (2006): 495.
  41. 40. For more on Roosevelt’s thoughts on baseball, see Curt Smith, The Presidents and the Pastime: The History…
  42. 41. Michael Oriard, Sporting with the Gods: The Rhetoric of Play and Game in American Culture (Cambridge, UK:…
  43. 42. On the rhetorical presidency, see Mary Stuckey, "Establishing the Rhetorical Presidency through President…
  44. and Jeffrey Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1987). On Roosevel…
  45. 43. Jon Paulson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Rhetoric of Citizenship: On Tour in New England, 1902,” Communic…
  46. 44. Robert V. Friedenberg, “Rhetoric, Religion and Government at the Turn of the 21st Century,” Journal of Co…
  47. 45. See Esther Kaplan, With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and De…
  48. 46. Sidney M. Milkis, Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party, and the Transformation of American Democracy…
  49. 47. Dorsey, We Are All Americans, 19, 2, 23.
  50. 48. John M. Murphy, “The Heroic Tradition in Presidential Rhetoric,” Rhetoric & Public Affairs 3 (2000): 468.
  51. 49. Zell Miller, “2004 Republican National Convention Address,” AmericanRhetoric.com, September 1, 2004, http…
  52. 50. Christian Spielvogel, “‘You Know Where I Stand’: Moral Framing of the War on Terrorism and the Iraq War i…
  53. 51. In particular, see Robert L. Ivie, Democracy and America’s War on Terrorism (Tuscaloosa: University of Al…
  54. 52. Mark West and Chris Carey, “(Re)Enacting Frontier Justice: The Bush Administration’s Tactical Narration o…
  55. 53. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "The Decider," New York Times, December 24, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/…
  56. Richard Cohen, "Bush's War against Nuance," Washington Post, February 17, 2004, https://www.washingtonpost.co…
  57. 54. The yet-to-be-built library for Barack Obama may change or enhance this trajectory, as it will be run ent…
  58. 55. Anthony Clark, The Last Campaign: How Presidents Rewrite History, Run for Posterity and Enshrine Their Le…
  59. 56. Drury and Herbeck, “Remembering and Re-Creating,” 187.
  60. 57. Jodi Kantner, Presidential Libraries as Performance: Curating American Character from Herbert Hoover to G…
  61. 58. Hufbauer, Presidential Temples, 40.
  62. 59. Clark, The Last Campaign.
  63. 60. William Middleton, “The New George W. Bush Library Opens in Dallas,” Architectural Digest, May 31, 2013, …
  64. 61. Christopher Hawthorne, “Architecture Review: Bush Presidential Library Is Fittingly Blunt,” Los Angeles T…
  65. 62. Clark, The Last Campaign, 126.
  66. 63. Gregory Curtis, “The Afterlife: On a Plot of Land between Central Expressway and Southern Methodist Unive…
  67. 64. I returned to visit the permanent exhibit for a second time on September 19, 2017.
  68. 65. See Butterworth, “Militarism and Memorializing”; and Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theo…
  69. 66. Quoted in John Odell, ed., Baseball as America: Seeing Ourselves through Our National Game (Washington, D…
  70. 67. This argument appears in various sources but is nicely summarized in chapter 3, “Jackie Robinson and the …
  71. 68. Kantner, Presidential Libraries.
  72. 69. Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945), 60
  73. and Barry Brummett, "Burke's Representative Anecdote as a Method in Media Criticism," Critical Studies in Mas…
  74. 70. George W. Bush, “Bullhorn Address to Ground Zero Rescue Workers,” AmericanRhetoric.com, September 14, 200…
  75. 71. William McKenzie, “The Real George W. Bush Is a Conviction Politician,” Dallas Morning News, April 21, 20…
  76. 72. Barack H. Obama, “Remarks at the Dedication Ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Muse…
  77. 73. “The Pitch,” September 2, 2004, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzCXcO856JU.
  78. 74. Theodore Roosevelt, “Citizenship in a Republic,” AmericanRhetoric.com, April 23, 1910, http://americanrhe…
  79. 75. Quoted in First Pitch, dir. Angus Wall. Bristol: ESPN Films, 2015.
  80. 76. Quoted in First Pitch.
  81. 77. Smith, The Presidents and the Pastime, 376.
  82. 78. Quoted in First Pitch.
  83. 79. Oriard, Sporting with the Gods, 27.
  84. 80. Drury and Herbeck, “Remembering and Re-Creating,” 176.
  85. 81. The museum’s curator told me in an email exchange, “I don’t have the exact data on the attendance numbers…
  86. 82. William McKenzie and Talmage Boston, “Why Baseball Matters—Still,” George W. Bush Institute, July 10, 201…
  87. 83. Michael L. Butterworth, “Public Memorializing in the Stadium: Mediated Sport, the 10th Anniversary of 9/1…
  88. 84. Hufbauer, Presidential Temples, 188.
  89. 85. The controversy about National Football League players kneeling during the national anthem began in 2016 …
  90. 86. Clark, The Last Campaign, 29.