There was no regret: when I asked Foo Kune if there were risks in making too close a national identification with the bird, and therefore with untimely death, he said, "The Dutch destroyed the dodo, and we Mauritians had nothing to do with it" — a bold rhetorical stand.
It is true that the Bush Administration took a clear and strong rhetorical stand for democracy in the Arab world, but it was terribly undermined by the deception used to justify the Iraq war, the prosecution of that war, the well-known instances of torture and rendition, and all the rest.
Ebola now functions in popular discourse as a not-so-subtle, almost completely rhetorical stand-in for any combination of "African-ness", "blackness", "foreign-ness" and "infestation" – a nebulous but powerful threat, poised to ruin the perceived purity of western borders and bodies.
When we communicate across society, it's at the level of rhetorical belief — "taking a stand" — more than in detail.
"Why," he asks, "do you guys wear your pants down below your butt?" It's plainly meant as a rhetorical question, but one rookie stands up to answer.
But our view is that while there have been some unfortunate excesses, there is also nothing inherently wrong with sharp exchanges and rhetorical attacks about character and stands on issues in a campaign.
The two sides should stand down from the rhetorical arms race.
Sanders himself might not have all the rhetorical flair Jackson had when he stood, black and defiant in the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Rubio's Christie-induced debate malfunction a few weeks back a tortured repetition of slick bullet points was a perfect stand-in for the rhetorical stasis that Trump is currently dynamiting.
There is indeed a consensus among GHAs who take a stand, at least from a rhetorical point of view, in favor of avoiding user fees at the point of delivery.
