Framing the Threat

6.2.1 The Evil Other

In the days and weeks after 9/11, George W. Bush enduringly referred to the enemy as ‘evil’ and strongly engaged in “(e)vilification” (Lazar/Lazar 2004). By demonizing the ‘other’, he constituted it as “absolutely-not-self” (Abdel-Nour 2004). In Bush’s framing, the terrorists “represent evil” (Bush 2001/09/17b); they are “flat evil,” and “all they can think about, is evil” (Bush 2001/09/25). They were “so evil and so dark and so negative” (Bush 2001/10/24) that they verified “that evil is real” (Bush 2001/10/08). Consequently, in speeches and statements, Bush addressed the terrorists as “evil ones” (Bush 2001/10/09, 2001/10/10, 2001/10/17a, 2001/10/17b, 2001/10/23, 2001/10/26, 2001/10/29, 2001/11/21, 2001/11/29, 2001/12/04, ...