Deployments and incursions of "evil" in political language are resolutely, profoundly, deliberately dogmatic. "When Bush uses the term evil, he announces that he knows that there are circumstances where dogmatism is necessary. After all, the right has not hesitated to use the word revolution -Reagan revolution, Gingrich revolution-to name their triumphs. The excess that dogmatism denotes ("over confidence" and a ((too punitive orientation" in Bennett's and Shapiro's words) is the key to its appeal. For those who find it appealing, or even necessary, dogmatism is a strength, a virtue. What is needed, then, is closer consideration of the settings within which dogmatism becomes attractive and reassuring.
A. look back at appearances of the word evil in presidential speeches is one way to get a sense of the settings of dogmatism's appeal. The speeches considered here suggest an inverse relation between dogmatism and signification. The stronger the chain of significations articulated with evil, the less dog1natic is the use of the term. More simply put, when "everybody knows" what evil is, when its meaning is clear and seemingly widely accepted, then its use in a presidential speech describes an object. Yet \_when "evil" is amorphous and unclear, its appearance in a presidential speech says something not about an opject but about the (dogmatic) conviction and resolve of the subject willing to name evil.
Presidential Evil
Evil has long been at home in presidential rhetoric, easily adapting to its changing demands. Taking up the Puritan political sermon or jeremiad, Sacvan Bercovitch specifies the role of this rhetoric in producing ((America" as a symbol in the country's early decades.25 My account begins in the Depression and period directly prior to the Cold War. As president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt turns to evil as he leads the country out of the
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