War on Berkeley city council: confused headline or rhetorical device?

The headline in the Los Angeles Times read: "Berkeley likely to reverse declaration on Marines"

One would "likely" believe that the citizens of the small city across the bay from San Francisco would think better than to engage in a conflict with the United States Marine Corps of Semper Fi fame ("always faithful"). There are a lot of tropes (rhetorical devices) in this article. Let's identify them:

To begin, the headline itself probably contains the rhetorical device, Zeugma, intended or not. Zeugma means "yoke" in Greek. Zeugma is a figure of speech describing the joining or "yoking" of two or more parts of a sentence with a single common verb or noun. Zeugma may employ ellipsis, the omission of a word or words in order to avoid redundancy, not the case here. Regarding the headline, "Berkeley likely to reverse declaration on Marines," the omitted words (in blue) as gauged upon the context of the article:

The Berkeley City Council likely to reverse its declaration on marine corps recruiting at this time."

These are scarcely redundant words. They are necessary words if one is to avoid not only rhetoric but also a misrepresentation of the event in Berkeley. The verb "declare" (taken from the noun, "declaration," would be "yoked" with the omitted word "corps recruiting." A relevant omission for one engaged in a rhetorical acts, whether he intended to engage, or not.

These words were not omitted to "avoid redundancy" but to, by rhetorical device, suggest that the Berkeley City Council was generically "out to get" the "marines" and always has been because it is the "devil." (see later reference to devil).

It turns out the Berkeley City Council has gone on record as not being opposed to the institution of the marine corps, but does not wish in the context of this particular point in history to allow the marine corps to recruit young people in its city limits, young people sent to fight and possibly die in a war most members of congress and many high-ranking military brass now admit was ill-considered.

The writer of the piece, John Glionna, wrote such phrases as: "...the liberal city's antiwar stance." (rhetorical device: innuendo: indirect suggestion (usually derogatory) Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Here, Glionna suggests that only liberals may be opposed to the war). He did not need to modify the city of Berkeley with the term "liberal." In the piece itself, Glionna makes it clear a good many "conservatives" appeared in counter demonstrations. Were there any conservatives who agreed with the city council's decision? We don't know. Left out of the reporting.

It would appear that conservatives are mostly "for the war" and for maintaining recruiting efforts within the Berkeley city limits: reactionary members of both federal and state legislatures in Washington and Sacramento (California's Capitol City) "threatened to withhold million of dollars in federal and state funds" previously dedicated to the city. As it turned out, "antiwar protestors outnumbered pro-military protestors 2 to 1." More innuendo: suggesting that to be opposed to a given military adventure is to be opposed to the military and the strategic defense of the nation. Noticeably, many generals have come out and opposed the war, a fact Mr. Glionna omitted from his piece. (refer to above link).

Glionna concludes his reporting by quoting a "pro war" "pro recruiting" protester offering his view of the Berkeley City Council and the city itself: "Do you think the devil will ever be converted? Not on your life."

Hyberbole (overstatement, overkill), a rhetocial device which Glionna chose to use, although quoted by another, and which punctuates the article by concluding with it, sort of like a crescendo in a musical composition. Zeugma is also used. The "yoked" word which is omitted is clearly the word "Berkeley," the "devil" Berkeley.

Final note, a rhetorical question: Is this a clear example of the bias of the "liberal" media?

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