Notes

I think Senator McCarthy failed at being a credible source. His most effective appeal was logos, as he used many statistics and numbers in his speech. For example, he says "the odds have changed from 9 to 1 in our favor to 8 to 5 against us" (pp 14), following multiple sentences with numbers to support the claim that they are in a losing battle. At the same time, considering how frequently he uses these numbers, specifically the number of names on a list that was "made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party" (pp 18), a listener would at least expect the numbers to be the same each time he mentions them. In the first speech, it is "a list of 205" (pp 18), while in the second speech, he says he compiled "a list of 57 Communists in the State Department" (pp 24). This lack of continuity and the huge difference between these two numbers makes it questionable whether he really is credible, or merely throwing out numbers. This is why his least effective appeal is ethos; his main use of ethos is the fact that he has this list. He mentions it multiple times as a way to say, "I'm not lying about this, it is a fact we have a large number of Communists in our department and I have a list to back this up." However, if this large number is changing from one speech to another, how can the list even be credible? If the list isn't credible, then McCarthy has little other ethos to speak for, which makes it hard to find him credible.