Central European Journal of Communication

ABSTRACT: This article focuses on rhetorical continuity and shifts in the use of the genre of American war rhetoric. Drawing on Lloyd Bitzer's understanding of the rhetorical situation, the article analyses the political circumstances in which George H. W. Bush in 1991 and George W. Bush in 2002 constructed and delivered their messages. It then examines and compares the addresses for particular typologies of war rhetoric as defined by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson and by Edward J. Lordan. With the rhetorical elements identified, the article discusses the implications of the adherence to and departures from the genre's criteria for presidential war discourse.