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 misunder

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y comment on the full range and challenges and opportunities that face the United States (Clinton A20). Clinton then talks about the issue as something taking place in the present that will require action in the future. He also considers the issue in terms of how it developed in the past, how events shaped the issue so that it now appears to be the problem it is, and how we might solve it in the future. The ceremonial nature of the occasion is more evident in the event than in the speech itself. Clinton does pay obeisance to those assembled, and he links the occasion to the many similar occasions in the past when other presidents have made their inaugural address. Aside from this, the bulk of the speech is a call to arms, an attempt to mobilize the people around certain specific issues. Clinton does go against the trend in this address in that he does discuss specific policy intentions and patterns and asks for support. Consider the speech in terms of the five interrelated elements cited by Campbell and Jamieson. The first is that the speech draws the audience together as "the people." This is clearly addressed by the speech both overtly and as a subtext of the discussion of policy. Clinton makes the analogy at the beginn

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