Corresponding author: John Oddo, 5075 Lakeside Ct, Stow, OH 44224, USA. Email: joddo@kent.edu Article War legitimation discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in four US presidential addresses John Oddo Kent State University, USA Abstract This article presents an intertextual analysis of legitimation in four ‘call-to-arms’ speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. Drawing on Thibault’s (1991) account of critical intertextual analysis, I identify key legitimation strategies and thematic formations that underlie the rhetoric of both speakers. In addition, I (re)situate the speeches in their wider social and historical context to demonstrate how both presidents manipulated the public. In the analysis, I first examine how both speakers use polarizing lexical resources to constitute ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ as superordinate thematic categories that covertly legitimate war. Next, I analyze how representations of the past and future also function to legitimate violence across the four speeches. Finally, I examine how both presidents demarcate group membership to discredit opponents of war at home, and legitimate violence against non-aggressors abroad. I conclude that, in spite of popular mythology, Bush is not an aberrant American president; he is one of many to have misled the public into war. Keywords Bush, intertextuality, Iraq War, legitimation, manipulation, membership categorization, polarization, proximization, rhetoric, Roosevelt, temporality, thematic formation, World War II Franklin Roosevelt was a big man with big thoughts. He never instituted color-coded fear systems to scare the bejesus out of us or ominously warned us of impending doom from mysterious hidden forces. In his booming voice he told us we had nothing to fear … FDR united a nation and he led. Bush is a small man with small thoughts, controlled by powerful and greedy forces, doing great damage to a great democracy in the service of a base and shallow agenda for crass political purpose. (Jackson, 2007: paras 9–10) Discourse & Society 22(3) 287–314 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub. co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0957926510395442 das.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on March 20, 2015 das.sagepub.com Downloaded from