I feel like Vatz is missing something important, though. He starts out by asserting that Blitzer was wrong to say a rhetor is not describing a dangerous situation or an embarrassing situation, only their own perception of their being in danger or their being embarrassed, but those are real forces which shape rhetoric. Even if the rhetor is objectively wrong, that does not preclude the chance that their erroneous perception will shape events in a very real way. The assassination of a president may not cause easily measurable harm to a population, but there are certainly measurable levels of psychic harm that can be visited upon a population that will shift the rhetoric and subsequent events in real ways. Reassurances are not nothing.