Lately in class we have been looking at Ann Coulter and Michael Moore. In essence these two are complete opposites. Ann Coulter being a stubborn conservative and Michael Moore a stubborn liberal. They are most definitely protesting. Ann Coulter protests liberals and their beliefs systems; she doesn’t have a very good way of going about it, but that is what she is doing. Michael Moore protests the Bush administration and the real reason why we went to war with Iraq. Ann Coulter uses personal attacks to protest while Michael Moore provides some sketchy evidence in documentaries to support his feelings about Bush. They are popular because of the tactics they use to get people interested. Ann Coulter uses attacking humor, conservative witticisms, and just plain mocking. While, Michael Moore uses emotional clips, humor in pointing out Bush’s flaws, and the raw truth to get his point across. Moore definitely uses more pathos and logos than Coulter. I would say Coulter uses her own ethos to write her protests rhetorically. The conclusions you can draw from their popularity is either for entertainment purposes or people who identify with their political parties are buying their argument. So their popularity is based on entertainment or partisan identification.
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I agree with what you wrote except for one thing. I do think that Moore also uses personal attacks to make his opponents look bad. He basically tries to discredit Bush from the begining of the movie, suggesting that some sort of inside job allowed him to win. (Moore forgets this case went to the Supreme Court, which at that time was dominated by liberals). Moore also tries to describe Bush as lazy suggesting that Bush spent most of his time in office hanging out on his Ranch and playing golf. Although Ann Coulter uses more direct ways of personally attacking her opponents (such as describing them as having "chubby legs"), Moore is guilty of the same fallacy.
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