President Bill Clinton was a beloved president during his two terms as America’s leader. He may have faced an impeachment trial during his second term, but those trials only improved his ratings to the highest they had ever been. During his farewell speech, Clinton tried to target the feelings of loss people felt when realizing that Clinton was leaving the Oval Office for good. In his farewell speech, Clinton uses all forms of rhetoric; ethos, pathos, and logos; to address the public in ways that make them respect and acknowledge his deeds during his time as the president of the US.
All presidents have certain statistics associated with them, an example being Obama with dropping unemployment below eight percent. Presidents are branded with these statistics regardless if they are positive or negative. Clinton, during his farewell speech, referenced several statistics that he that he believes his administration was directly responsible for. Statistics he mentioned are “22 million new jobs” and “Crime is at a new twenty-five year low” (Bill Clinton, Paragraph 3) . These are positive examples of logos, using statistics that people see as positive so that he can credit himself for these accomplishments.
Clinton also combined pathos and logos together with one sentence, “More than three million children have health insurance now, and more than 7 million Americans have been lifted out of poverty.” (Bill Clinton, Paragraph 4) These statistics are clearly logos based due to how it references an indisputable fact that could be researched if someone so wished. The pathos part is who the quote is about, orphans and the homeless. People generally seem to think that helping the less fortunate is a positive thing, appealing to people’s fondness for helping their fellow citizens and seeing the less fortunate happier after being helped. By focusing on this part of his presidency, Clinton represents himself as saving grace to the less fortunate that were helped by the policies placed at the time.
Clinton was the forty second president America had in its history, a title that holds the highest power in the American government. Presidents of The United States of AMerica are called the “Commander and Chief” of the American military forces. With this form of power, Clinton’s words hold the same power each president had before him. This kind of ethos is passed down within the Oval Office to each president, a type of authority the people of America give to their leaders. There is also the authority that each president had obtained before their presidency, an example being how Bill Clinton was a governor for Arkansas. That level of ethos is something that Clinton, along with any president, naturallys uses whenever he makes a public statement.
During his farewell address, Clinton uses all forms of rhetoric to connect with the people of America to convey both his feelings of his departure from the Oval Office and the peoples feelings on his leave. He uses logos to state the factual statistics that are a result of his administration, pathos in order to show empathy to the less fortunate of the American people, and he naturally uses ethos in his speeches by simply being the president of the United States of America. Rhetoric is used throughout the entire speech while Clinton is trying to convey a feeling that would be described as loss for the American people. He makes them feel as if his leave of the White House is more important to them then they would originally believe. A simple use of rhetoric, making them miss you by simply using statistics viewed as positive while relating to them and laying down your authority.
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