How did the G.W. Bush administration manage to persuade Americans to go to war in Iraq in March 2003? How was this intervention, and the global campaign named as "war-on-terror," legitimised linguistically? This book shows that the best legitimisation effects in political discourse are accomplished through the use of "proximization"--A cognitive-rhetorical strategy that draws on the speaker's ability to present events as directly and increasingly affecting the addressee, usually in a negative ...