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ROGERS, DAVID MICHAEL, Ph.D. Bodies of Executive Citizenship: Embodied Rhetorical Performances of the Presidency from Reagan to Obama. (2012) Directed by Hephzibah Roskelly. 203 pp. This dissertation contributes to the recent resurgence of scholarship devoted to the American presidency by arguing that the role of the presidential body works as a singularly significant crucial point for notions of citizenship and national identity. Addressing presidential bodies as texts shows that the singularity of the presidential body positions it as a dense site of affect and identification that allows for leadership and the organization of politics to work through the management of emotions. In particular, the emergence of television allows presidents to embody sovereign power in ways that both sentimentalize it and separate the performance of singular, model citizenship from populations more or less abandoned as not-quite-national subjects. By exploring how media imagine the chief executive and how presidents represent themselves on television, in speeches, and in campaign documentaries, I identify national scripts that constitute executive citizenship, a concept I develop and see as crucial to the management of public and private life. By highlighting the fundamental role executive performances play in constructing an image of national citizenship and shaping feelings of belonging, I challenge traditional narratives that figure citizenship in the U.S. as natural rather than deliberately constructed through rhetoric and language. BODIES OF EXECUTIVE CITIZENSHIP: EMBODIED RHETORICAL PERFORMANCES OF THE PRESIDENCY FROM REAGAN TO OBAMA by David Michael Rogers A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2012 Approved by ______________________________ Committee Chair APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by David Michael Rogers has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair ____________________________________ Committee Members ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee __________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee, Hephzibah Roskelly, Danielle Bouchard, Mark Rifkin, and Christian Moraru--especially Hepsie who deserves a round of applause! Their patience, support, and feedback made this project possible. As this project demonstrates, I am indebted to their—sometimes—very different perspectives. Nancy Myers and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater also deserve a huge thank you. You both have made me the teacher I am today. I would also like to thank Alyson Frazier and Lydia Howard. You two were the first to welcome me to Greensboro. I would also like to thank my friends who have supported me over the years. It definitely took a village—actually several villages—to finish this project. First, to the group of teaching assistants who know that sometimes it is better to flesh out your ideas over a bottle of wine. An extra shout out goes to Aaron Chandler, Sara Littlejohn, Heidi Hanrahan, Liz Vogel, Liz Wilkinson, and Alan Benson. To the students, faculty, and staff at Mary Foust, thank you for your friendship and challenging me to be a better teacher and thinker. I am also grateful to my parents who have nourished me emotionally and intellectually. Your financial support was a big help, too! Lastly, I’d like to give a very special thanks to Lauren Wallis who somehow managed to survive me from this project’s start to finish. Your friendship, support, generosity, and cheerleading will always be remembered. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: THEORIZING EXECUTIVE CITIZENSHIP ......................1 II. WRITING AND ENACTING BODIES OF THE EXECUTIVE CITIZEN ..........................................................................................................46 III. FICTIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF EXECUTIVE CITIZENSHIP ...............................................................................................112 IV. RECONSTRUCTING OBAMA ........................................................................164 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................190 iv HK CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: THEORIZING EXECUTIVE CITIZENSHIP On the Tuesday before St. Patrick’s Day in 2012, President Barack Obama spoke in the Oval Office alongside the Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny expressing confidence that Ireland’s economy would get moving again, claiming that Ireland’s growth would have a positive impact on the U.S. economy. After thanking the Irish people for the warm welcome he received when he visited Ireland the previous year, in a response that would have been uncharacteristic of Obama a year before, he quips, “This will have a special place of honor alongside my birth certificate.”1 The crowd erupted into laughter. Obama’s joke reflects somewhat ironically on the singularly significant role the president plays in the construction of citizenship and national belonging insofar as the president’s physical self symbolizes a cohesive national identity. That Obama’s U.S. citizenship was ever questioned by so many Americans suggests how his being the first black U.S. president disrupted—even interrupted—many dominant cultural narratives and icons that define the U.S. presidency, narratives and images that have historically been coded as white, male, and middle class.2 Since Obama can joke about these accusations and receive a positive response reflects how Obama’s presidency challenges the scripts of the executive. Equally important to the rhetorical message of the moment with the Irish prime minister is the subject of the meeting. Obama’s visit to Ireland was primarily to discuss 1 ways of improving the global economy, and the scene reinforced what has become an important symbolic dimension of the presidency to the public: the president as economic functionary, the CEO to the large corporation of the United States.3 In this way, the rise of executive power coordinates with the ascendency of corporatism in government. Obama’s joke with the Irish prime minister suggests the importance of the president as both a physical representation of American citizenry and as chief officer for economic advancement. According to Andrew Rosenthal, an editorial editor for The New York Times, although many 2008 supporters believed that President Obama would single-handedly transform American politics and bring together a divided nation, “the country is more divided than it was four years ago, the parties and their supporters more polarized…” (“Campaigning Beyond Inspiration”). If it is true—as so many political pundits, academics, and media darlings have declared—that the country is more divided than ever before, what have been the causes of this rift?4 Certainly, there is a range of answers to this question; no one person or set of ideologies can be solely to blame. However, Obama’s presidency itself could be seen as one of the causes, since his very presence in the Oval Office alters the image of the privileged U.S. citizen. During the campaign and first term as president, some of President Obama’s critics, mostly those leading the Birther movement, claimed that they were not convinced he was a U.S. citizen and was thus unfit to hold office. Political groups, individuals, and several lawmakers persistently demanded that Obama present his birth certificate to prove he was in fact a legal U.S. citizen. Initially, Obama refused to play along and present his birth certificate to his 2 accusers, but finally on Wednesday, April 27, 2011, Obama released his long-form birth certificate and at a press conference stated that he had grown tired with the “sideshows and carnival barkers” of the Birther movement (“Obama Releases Detailed”). Evidently for some, it was still not sufficient proof to put the issue to rest. As recently as March 20, 2012, some lawmakers were still stoking the Birther debate. According to an article on abcnews.com, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Representative Cliff Stearns, a senior Florida Republican, told reporters that he is still not convinced that Obama’s birth certificate is valid, stating, “I am, shall we say, looking at all the evidence” (Parkinson). We can only speculate about why so many Americans still refuse to believe he is a U.S. citizen.5 Once Obama seriously entered the presidential race, racialized rhetoric resurfaced in political discourse, and while the racist Birther canard hit the mainstream through movements such as the Tea Party and by presidential hopefuls such as Donald Trump, several Republican leaders allowed it to simmer. 6 When Obama ended up feeling obliged to present his birth certificate was, according to a New York Times editorial, “a profoundly low and debasing moment in American political life” (“A Certificate of Embarrassment”). Why Obama would choose (initially not) to bow to pressure from Birthers is as uncertain as why some Americans exerted that pressure. Perhaps why Obama refused to show his birth certificate for so long is he did not want to appear weak, since no other president in recent memory who held office prior to becoming or during his presidency

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