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President Clinton's Inaugural Address

The inaugural address of an American president is an important ceremonial event and an occasion for a particular kind of communication between the President and the people--not only those people who voted for him, but all the people, for the President is the one elected federal official who represents all the people and not just a segment of the population. The address is the first official pronouncement made by the new president, and it is analyzed as setting the tone for the four years to follow. The speech should indicate in broad strokes how the president views the task facing the nation. This is not the occasion for specific statements of policy, though newspapers and other commentators will comb through every word looking for some indication of the direction policy may take. Every inaugural address develops from the political culture and turmoil of the time in which it is delivered, and the incoming president tries to reassure the nation, set a tone for his presidency, and perhaps to offer a challenge to his enemies all at the same time. Presidents have had differing skill in shaping and delivering their addresses, drawing on rhetorical devices to convey a message and to communicate a sense of meaning and value. The inaugural address of President Clinton will be analyzed with this in mind.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell and Kathleen Hall Jamieson agree that the inaugural address has a special character, but they also believe the symbolic function of the speech is misunderstood. They see the speech as an essential element in a ritual of transition "in which the covenant between the citizenry and their leaders is renewed" (Campbell and Jamieson 14). This type of speech is a form called epideictic, meaning that it is a type of rhetoric that praises or blames on ceremonial occasions, asks the audience to evaluate the performance of the speaker, recalls the past, and speculates about the future. It does so using a noble, dignified...

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President Clinton's Inaugural Address. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 19:54, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690681.html