The speech itself starts (as do most) with an introduction. Almost immediately bush jumps into what Orwell would have considered pretentious diction:.
"Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat" (Bush, par. 2). .
As Orwell states pretentious diction is "used to dignify the sordid processes of international politics, [ ] that aims at glorifying war" (24). This is exactly what the paragraph above is doing. Bush is making an attempt at glorifying American intervention into what he perceives as a "threat to peace." On further examination, one would note, every paragraph after has included in it one form of pretentious diction or another. Whether it be "[dressing] up simple statements [to] give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments" (BR, 24), as the case is in the quote:.
"In my view, [waiting is] the riskiest of all options, because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I'm convinced that is a hope against all evidence. As Americans, we want peace -- we work and sacrifice for peace" (Bush, par. 38).
or be it glorifying war, witch the whole basis of the speech is on. .
As well as pretentious diction Bush uses a stunning display of meaningless words in his speech. Orwell describes meaningless words, as words that have lost there meaning, that have no precise definition, also they are often associated with "something desirable" or "something not desirable" (BR, 25). This type of word association in a political essay is normal. This device is also what they use to hide atrocities committed for the side of justice. Words like collateral damage, or friendly fire, when compared to their counterparts civilian murdering, or military mess up, seem to be almost justified.
