Rhetorical Analysis.

I admit to the following: I did not watch the State of the Union speech. I simply cannot listen to that voice. The tortured logic is bad enough (and logic of torture), but when you add in the President speaking with all the pace and clarity of my five year old (who by the way is now reading level 1 festival reader books -- think "'Grow, turnip, grow,' said the old man."), it becomes utterly unlistenable.

I prefer to read the speech the next day, if at all. So here's a great example of bad speechwriting:

"In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline," Bush said.

If you look closely you will find Bush's "two-fers" all over the place. In this short sentence, Bush uses no less than four of what I am calling "two-fers." Professional rhetoricians may have a technical name for them, but here they are: "complex and challenging," "isolationism and protectionism," "broad and inviting," and "danger and decline."

Used sparingly, this construction is simple and powerful -- it can provide great emphasis or the two terms can work against one another to provide nuance. However, Bush's speechwriters -- most likely limited by their orator's weak grasp of English -- overdo the device, drowning their audience in cascades of two-fers. In grading papers, I see this construction deployed most often by writers who don't have enough to say and wish to pad their papers any way they can. In the course of a 5 page paper, you can make up nearly a quarter of a page by constantly hammering away with the second descriptor. However, the State of the Union shouldn't be freshman comp.

I am dismayed and disgusted.