Rhetorical Analysis on Bill Clinton's Oklahoma City Bombing Speech

In 1995, tragedy struck in the state of Oklahoma. In Oklahoma City, the federal building was bombed on April 19, where innocent American men, women and children were gruesomely murdered. President William Clinton then gave a powerful speech on April 23, that addressed the situation in all of the correct ways. Everything about this speech was done in the right way because the ethos, logos, pathos, and even the kairos were all appropriate for this speech.

He began this speech addressing the audience by talking about the people who were affected the most, and then about the people of the United States. He then established his credibility as a person who is not only the United States President but also a citizen who is a parent, husband, and a neighbor. The president then stated how he mourned and grieved with everyone who were injured and families who lost loved ones. Clinton used anaphora very well at the start of this speech by emphasizing on the phrase "who worked" many times in one sentence. 

The President then goes on to quote a meaningful letter from a woman who is a widowed mother of three. In this section from the letter that Clinton uses in his speech, she also uses anaphora effectively,"The anger you feel is valid, but you must not allow yourselves to be consumed by it. The hurt you feel must not be allowed to turn into hate, but instead into the search for justice. The loss you feel must not paralyze your own lives. Instead, you must try to pay tribute to your loved ones by continuing to do all the things they left undone, thus ensuring they did not die in vain"(Clinton,1995). The President used this because it could now have a warrant on his audience because the experience the widow went through could be similar for many in the audience. 

As Bill Clinton nears the end of the speech, he ties in the belief of God to get his point across that justice will

prevail and how America will stand up for its' people. At the very end he uses a trope that works very well because

he says, "My fellow Americans, a tree takes a long time to grow, and wounds take a long time to heal. But we must begin. Those who are lost now belong to God. Some day we will be with them. But until that happens, their legacy must be our lives" (Clinton, 1995). The diction in this speech is amazing because his word choice affects his audience greatly. This rhetoric was very successful because President William Clinton knew what to say that would bring American closer after this tragedy by his use of diction, anaphoras, kairos, and warrants. 

Click Here for the text of the speech

Blog Response 3- 9/3

1. Out of all four of the readings from Writing and Pace, Jamaica Kincaid's, "On Seeing England for the First Time" used thick description most effectively. The way she began her story by describing the first time she saw England on a map as little girl painted me a great mental picture of what exactly she experienced. "... it lay on bed of sky blue-the background of the map-its yellow form mysterious, because though it looked like a leg of mutton, it could not really look like anything so familiar as a leg of mutton because it was England..." This description made myself feel as if I were sitting next to her in that class. She thought of England as a perfect place, one place that she loves and can cherish when she saw the map of the country.  Although, when she actually visited the country, her entire perspective changed. She gave the audience descriptions that the people were mean and ugly, the weather was terrible and the food was even worse. The last sentence in the story can sum up how she views England as an adult, "...My views of England, starting with the map before me in my classroom and ending with the trip I had just taken, should jump and die and disappear forever." 

2. From the two readings in College Composition at Miami, I read "The Church Uptown" written by Ian McGuiness. I really enjoyed reading this short story because it wrote about the deep history and roots in Miami. I liked how he did his research on the church and gave accurate information but still kept me tied into the story. The way McGuiness described the church made me feel like I was looking at the church, "A tall, old, brick structure peers out of a cove of trees on High Street. Its well kept garden of bright flowers and out-of-place architecture alert the common passerby to its presence." He also gave good imagery about uptown and how new it is compared to the old church building that is sometimes perceived as "out of date."