Final Project Presentation

For my final project, I decided to do an analysis of a couple of speeches by President Bill Clinton. These speeches interested me because I was only nine-years-old when all of the controversy with Clinton and Lewinsky was occurring and I hadn't really watched the speech since then. As far as presidential speeches go, this one is definitely one of the most interesting to me. I find this speech quite funny just because it is a well-delivered speech and President Clinton is doing quite well with it until he completely shifts his topic to his allegations.

Despite his obvious distress over the allegations being held against him, President Clinton is still a very talented public speaker. He seems to have notes he reads from, but he relies a lot on memory for this speech. He uses inartistic and artistic proofs to try to emphasize his point.

"Every child needs someplace to go after school. With after-school programs, we can not only keep our kids healthy and happy and safe, we can help to teach them to say no to drugs, alcohol, and crime, yes to reading, sports, and computers. My balanced budget plan includes a national initiative to spark private sector and local community efforts to provide after-school care, as the Secretary of Education said, to half a million more children."

Although it is not what this speech is famous for, this is all about improving educational standards and the welfare of the country's children. He has states many issues with our school systems during this time and he uses logos and pathos quite a bit throughout this speech to appeal to his audience. The above quote is just one example of how he used these proofs to appeal to his audience. The audience here would be the American people, but the people initially watching were most likely middle and upper-class citizens.

I feel as though the President's credibility and ethos as a speaker really came into question during the time this speech was delivered and during the months following. In another speech, he later came out and admitted that he was guilty of the allegations and was put through impeachment trials for lying under oath.

This speech became famous after its delivery and has been parodied many times.