Edward Snowden's Rhetorical Strategies

While Edward Snowden is trying to use rhetoric to convince his audience that the programs he revealed are un-American and morally wrong, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie uses it to make the opposite case. He employs similar appeals to authority and emotion to convince Republican voters, a more targeted subset of the general American population that Snowden is appealing to, that these programs are necessary for national security and that they should elect him President because he would use them most effectively. To gain a better perspective on the types of rhetorical strategies he uses to make this argument, consider his exchange with Senator Rand Paul at the first Republican primary debate. Because this takes place at a primary debate, Christie and Paul each want to convince Republicans to vote to award him the Republican nomination and, in turn, to elect him president. The exchange comes after Christie is asked a question about a statement he had made that Paul should be considered partly responsible for any terrorist attack that occurs in the US in the future because of his role in weakening the programs that Snowden revealed. After Christie reaffirms
This appeal to ethos allows him to avoid actually engaging Senator Paul on the merits of the program: it takes for granted that the programs are effective in “protecting the homeland” and eliminates the need for him to directly respond to the assertion that they are incompatible with a respect for civil