Vice President Mike Pence's Speech at the Marine Barracks: Policy without Proof?

Mike Pence, White House Photo

Yesterday, October 23, 2017, Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the Marine Barracks in Washington DC to commemorate the 1983 Beirut bombing, which killed 241 service personnel, mostly United States Marines. Members of a peacekeeping force, they were killed by a suicide bomber. The bombing, probably planned by Hezbollah and Iran, eventually led to President Ronald Reagan's decision to withdraw American forces from Lebanon.

Although Pence's speech was mostly long, dull, and predictable, he made some important points in an important way. As I have noted many times, ceremonial and commemorative speakers often support policies. But they do not support policy with arguments and evidence. Instead, they tell the audience what values the honored dead stood for, and say that we must follow their example. Or they might use praise and flattery. This can be, on the one hand, noble and right. We do want to honor our traditional values, which we forget at our peril. On the other hand, because the world changes every day, we want to be sure that our old policies are still right, which might require careful study.

Epideictic speeches, usually given at ceremonies like this one, give praise or blame to someone, often someone deceased. Praise is more common. Pence praised the courageous Marines: "This facility is an enduring testament to the fortitude and valor of America's Marines." He said that the Marines in Lebanon died for a noble cause: "this force of freedom stood together to protect the innocent and prevent a civil war from becoming an even greater tragedy." But it was, Pence said, "for that very reason, because of the principles for which they stood and the peace for which they strived, these heroes aroused the attention of great evil. And on that Sunday morning, that evil set them in its sights." Pence, who is noted for Evangelical Christian views, quoted the Bible: "the Lord is close to the brokenhearted." (Psalm 34:18). For those who shared Pence's religious views, quoting the Bible re-emphasized values. Pence said that "We remember our fallen heroes and those they left behind."

None of that could cause much controversy. Of course we should remember our fallen heroes. Of course we oppose evil. However, Pence jumped to a controversial policy: "But we also have a duty to honor the memory of our fallen by continuing to stand strong to fight and defeat the enemy that so cruelly took them from us." He announced that "The Beirut barracks bombing was the opening salvo in a war that we have raged ever since -- the global war on terror." He praised President Donald Trump's policy: "President Trump has already taken decisive action to make the strongest military in the history of the world stronger still." He promised that "this President has made clear that America will stand with our allies and we will stand up to our enemies." He condemned "radical Islamic terrorism," which he called "a hydra with many heads." He criticized "Iran's theocratic rulers." He praised President Trump's very controversial decision to decertify an agreement to slow Iran's nuclear weapons program. Pence promised that, "under the leadership of President Donald Trump, we will drive the cancer of terrorism from the face of the earth."

To know for sure whether those policies are right or wrong goes beyond the skill set of a retired speech professor like me. They are, however, all controversial. Good arguments could probably be made for or against any of them. By using epideictic speech, Pence advocated these policies without giving a single concrete reason for any of them. Was Iran complying with the nuclear arms deal? Pence never even said. Would a powerful, modern military be able to stop a radical ideology from spreading? Pence never explained.

What Pence did, instead, was to cite the Marines' bravery, praise their values, and then to announce that Mr. Trump's controversial policies continued to spread those values.

Like Ronald Reagan at Pointe du Hoc, like John McCain speaking about nationalism, like Hillary Clinton speaking at her alma mater, like President Barack Obama advocating gun control in his Charleston speech, like many other epideictic speakers throughout history, Mike Pence slipped directly from values to policy, appealing to tradition rather than to reason. There is nothing wrong with that as long as the audience knows what the speaker is doing.

Was Pence's speech dull? Surely! Did that make it  bad? Maybe not. He said the expected things in the expected manner, making his implied policy arguments harder to argue with. Conservatives -- real conservatives -- often go out of their way to sound solid and traditional. Being solid and traditional becomes part of their ethos. That's a nifty little track that speakers sometimes use.

https://www.facebook.com/marines/videos/10154742711950194/

Mike Pence speaking at Marine Barracks