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.28 Johnson smetaphor influenced the crafting and reaction to the poverty issue.Metaphors also serve to orientate an audience to a particular point of view.Max Black explains that metaphors are like a prism for screening data:Suppose I look at the night sky through a piece of heavenly smoked glass onwhich certain lines have been left clear.Then I see only the stars that can bemade to lie on the lines previously prepared upon the screen, and the stars I dosee will be organized by the screen s nature.We can think of metaphor as sucha screen.29Rhetors use metaphor to screen the message so that audiences see the sub-ject in the manner that s/he wants you to see it.An example of this can befound in George H.W.Bush s use of the World War II metaphor.30 In the firstGulf War, Bush presented the conflict between the United States and Iraq assimilar to World War II.In doing so, the president was able to stave off criti-cism that Iraq would be another Vietnam.Bush s discourse proved vital toframing the larger issue in such a way to disassociate his intervention fromthe memory of the Vietnam conflict. 08_421_03_Ch02.qxd 10/13/08 8:39 AM Page 3434 Chapter TwoThe natural metaphors that Clinton used fashioned images of an interna-tional environment that was unchecked, unpredictable, and still forming.Forexample, Clinton stated globalization was creating an international arena thatwas like a new river, providing both power and disruption to all of us wholive along its course. 31 In another address, the president noted the forces ofglobal integration are a great tide, inexorably wearing away the established or-der of things. 32 Further, the president stated the global economy was unruly and a bucking bronco that often lands with its feet on different sides of oldlines and sometimes with its whole body on us. 33 The metaphors of a newriver, a great tide, and a bucking bronco connote images of an age con-taining forces filled with power, but power that was raw, unharnessed, andlacking any particular direction.Clinton s use of the phrase new river is par-ticularly illustrative of this idea.Rivers have a tremendous amount of powerto cut through a landscape, but new rivers have no particular path.They areunpredictable and can essentially go anywhere.The paths these rivers gener-ate leave considerable beauty, but also destruction.Simply put, new rivers al-ter the ecosystems they encounter.For Clinton, globalization was a river thathad not yet established a particular path, so in cutting across the internationallandscape it left both beauty and destruction.Globalization was unpredictableand unstable, altering the international landscape in fundamental ways thatwere as yet only poorly understood.His employment of these metaphors con-notes images of post Cold War world that was unstable and unpredictable acontext to which American foreign policy would have to adjust.FULFILLING THE MISSION OF EXEMPLARClinton s discourse on globalization demonstrates that he viewed thepost Cold War world as fundamentally different from previous geopoliticaleras.It was an international context where the central pillar was change,which offered both prospect and anxiety.The change that globalizationwrought offered a challenge to America s foreign policy station.Despite thisfact, Clinton never wavered in his decision to continue to America s leader-ship role.To do so, the president argued that the United States must begin bydomestically adapting to and managing the changes brought on by globaliza-tion so all Americans might have the opportunity to benefit from it.As a re-sult, rejuvenating America s domestic order became a way for Clinton to or-der the change put forth by globalization while also serving as a reason tomaintain the U.S.role of world leader.Clinton expressed this mission through three distinct but overlappingclaims the United States must achieve to manage this era.First, he maintained 08_421_03_Ch02
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