George H.W. Bush’s unexceptional moment: rhetorical casuistry following the dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day

Abstract

In the fall of the Soviet Union and resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, many Americans doubtless saw the realization of Ronald Reagan’s Cold War strategy. However, it was not Reagan who was tasked with responding to this momentous occasion, but George H.W. Bush. Rather than exult over communism’s failure in the USSR, Bush’s response was careful, measured, and surprisingly lacking in the American exceptionalist bluster that characterized his predecessor’s approach. This essay evaluates Bush’s rhetorical choice as a case study in what Kenneth Burke called “casuistic stretching”: introducing new principles while remaining faithful to the old. I argue that Bush’s casuistic stretching drew from core narratives of the American founding to reconceptualize the United States’ relationship with Russia’s fledgling democracy. While this choice may have assuaged the international community, domestic appeal for Bush’s rhetorical strategy was ultimately blunted by his political proximity to Reagan, a situation that can be better understood using Stephen Skowronek’s theory of political time. Thus, my larger argument is that political time provides insight into the limits of casuistic stretching for presidential rhetoric. Casuistic stretching, as Bush’s example illustrates, requires sensitivity to the not only the particulars of a situation, but also the competing and contingent hierarchies of value that exist within the broader moment of political time.