Dwight D. Eisenhower Speech Summary

The background of the speech is pretty evident from circumstances of Richard Nixon running on the ticket for vice president with Dwight D. Eisenhower on the ticket for president. The speech entitled, “checkers” came into formation and existence because of the assumption that Richard Nixon was receiving funds and money gifts from donors in secret and “off the books” and also in ways that are generally illegal. He used this speech to reveal the real reasons for those gifts and that none of the money from the donors have gone to him personally, but rather they were used for real and legit political expenses that he didn’t want to have to charge the federal government with. These expenses are not limited to paying for travel, campaign related funds, and other necessary expenses. In my opinion, the significance of the speech was that it brought upon many different changes in how the government got involved with the national media. I think that the speech, because it was more emotional and on the personal side, it brought a sense of human emotion and the ability for the public to interact with and to understand politicians. It also showed that televsion and media do in fact have a lot of influence in the image of political persons and the reality persona that it creates.

Eisenhower to try to get rid of all of the bad people out of Washington. Nixon then uses Logos by boosting up Dwight D. Eisenhower and how he will get rid of the corrupt people and that he “knows” how to deal with the problem. Nixon tried to use Aristotle’s approach to Rhetoric to defend himself, and not only did it keep him in the race and on the ticket as VP, but eventually he became president where his own Ethos, Pathos, and Logos became under question, but that is for another