rhetoric
... got our first taste of rhetoric. Kevin and Julia find themselves both in the hotel lobby for the same reason, they can’t sleep and they both want the cold/sleeping pill. Julia takes her best shot at the pill by saying her little boy has a cough, then Kevin counters by saying his grandma is recovering from an extensive liposuction surgery. Both Kevin and Julia used deception in that they were trying to trick each other in order to get the pill. A sly form of rhetoric, but deception still remains an important form of persuasion. The “Friendship Ditch” is another instance in the movie in which rhetoric was used as well as another instance in which deception was used. This time the deceptive rhetoric was used on a much larger scale, the race for New Mexico State Senate. Garvin stated in his speech that the ditch between New Mexico and Mexico wasn’t something bad; he called it a “friendship ditch” because it ensured our security as well as our friendship. Garvin took a shot at making a bad thing sound good, the end result was a lot of shouting and boos. The third instance of rhetoric found in the movie was a tad more subtle, this time involving the State Spelling Bee champion, a little girl. While writing a speech for Garvin, Kevin asks for a way to get in touch with the town, he does so through the you...