A battle between good and evil: An analysis of the selling of the USA PATRIOT Act

Abstract

On October 26, 2001 President George W. Bush signed into the law the USA PATRIOT Act, comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation which he hailed as an essential effort "to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike," (Bush, 2001, October, 26, ¶11). The law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was well received by the public. In this study, I looked at how the law was sold by the Bush administration in order to understand the unprecedented, and short lived, reception of the Patriot Act by examining the rhetorical strategies the administration used.

Throughout this process, I discovered the Bush administration used narrative, value, and ideological strategies to create an overly simplistic argument about a battle between good and evil which relied heavily on the post-9-11 scene. In this scenario, the Patriot Act was presented as just one tool in an arsenal for the War on Terror.