Chapter 2 - Performing the US Presidency

Summary

‘My fellow citizens: Today we celebrate the mystery of American renewal’, the newly inaugurated President Bill Clinton declared on 20 January 1993 (Clinton 1993). With lyrical flourish, Clinton connected the wintery day – many in his audience were wearing hats and gloves despite the sunny weather – to his inauguration speech's theme of rejuvenation and restoration: ‘This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring. A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth the vision and courage to reinvent America.’ Clinton went on to speak of core American ideals – life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; he thanked his predecessor, President George H. W. Bush; he referred to great historical challenges that have faced the United States in the Great Depression, in fascism, communism, and the Cold War; he dropped the name of George Washington and outlined how much the United States had changed since the country's founding. As an inaugural address, the speech was uncontroversial, even unremarkable. It was a speech on renewal that anticipated the turn of the millennium while touching on key moments and figures from American history. Clinton conveyed some sense of the enormity of the challenges facing the United States in a globally connected world, but on the whole this was an optimistic speech. There was a hint of broadly anti-establishmentarian manoeuvring as Clinton asserted the need to ensure ‘that power and privilege no longer shout down the voice of the people’ and promised ‘to give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs’, but there was no anger in the newly inaugurated president's voice. At the same time as calling for the restoration of civic-minded public service in Washington, DC, Clinton also reminded the crowd that ‘in this city today, there are people who want to do better’. Although Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman writes of Clinton's ‘surprising vehemence’ in his ‘rapid-fire’ dictation of his dig at the Washington elite during speech preparation (2000, 33), the crowd's applause to these lines as delivered was enthusiastic but not fervent. This was clearly an audience whose political sensibilities had been pleasingly tickled, not one moved to either tears or red-faced anger.