A Superpower Apologizes? President Clinton’s Address in Rwanda

The failure to intervene in Rwanda was one of the greatest foreign policy mishaps of Bill Clinton\u27s presidency. In March 1998, Clinton made an extended tour of the African subcontinent with a stop in Rwanda. During his brief visit, the president attempted to repair the image of the United States among Rwandans and the broader international community. Clinton used three primary image repair strategies: democratization of blame, corrective action, and transcendence. Despite his emphasis on the important lessons that the world could learn from the Rwandan genocide, we argue that his rhetorical choices ultimately undermined his larger mission and led to the mixed response he received from pundits, politicians, and policymakers

Redefining Sovereignty: An Analysis of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s Rhetoric on the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine

This essay examines United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s rhetoric concerning the responsibility to protect doctrine (R2P). This essay seeks to rhetorically map the arguments concerning the nature of R2P and what its specific components are. Specifically, I argue that Ban Ki-Moon’s rhetoric serves to redefine and update sovereignty and the responsibilities of statehood for a twenty-first century world. The rhetoric of R2P has important implications for the debates surrounding military intervention on “humanitarian” grounds

The Good Citizen: Presidential Rhetoric, Immigrants, and Naturalization Ceremonies

This essay examines how American presidents define the “good citizen,” particularly as it relates to naturalized immigrants. Because citizens who are naturalized have to go through an onerous process to become citizens they can offer lessons to natural-born Americans who take their citizenship for granted. I argue that presidents construct naturalized immigrants as the lifeblood of American progress and power. The accomplishments of individual citizen heroes provide something for all to emulate. At the same time, presidents define the good citizen in a one-dimensional way that undermines the potential of communal activities to bring issues and problems to light that need to discussed, debated, and potentially solved

Defining the enemy for the post-Cold War world: Bill Clinton’s foreign policy discourse on Somalia and Haiti

American presidents use images of savagery to identify and construct America’s adversaries, especially prior to and during some form of armed intervention. During the Cold War, presidents used images of modern savagery to craft a Soviet enemy and its proxies. In the post-Cold War world, Bill Clinton did not have the luxury of a monolithic enemy to organize American foreign policy. He faced a threat environment that was more complex, transnational, and diffuse. Within this environment, I argue Clinton used images of primitive and modern savagery to define America’s adversaries. An analysis of Clinton’s discourse reveals that his use of both of these rhetorical forms broadened how presidents construct America’s enemies. Moreover, the use of both images of savagery provided a rhetorical flexibility that was needed for the threat environment of the post-Cold War world. This essay contributes to deeper understandings of presidential rhetoric in general and crisis rhetoric in particular

Contemporary conservative constructions of American exceptionalism

Ever since President Obama took office in 2009, there has been an underlying debate amongst politicians, pundits, and policymakers over America’s exceptionalist nature. American exceptionalism is one of the foundational myths of U.S. identity. While analyses of Barack Obama’s views on American exceptionalism are quite prominent, there has been little discussion of conservative rhetorical constructions of this important myth. In this essay, I seek to fill this gap by mapping prominent American conservatives’ rhetorical voice on American exceptionalism

Foreign Policy Rhetoric in the 1992 Presidential Campaign: Bill Clinton\u27s Exceptionalist Jeremiad

This essay examines presidential candidate Bill Clinton\u27s rhetoric regarding America\u27s role in the world during the 1992 presidential campaign. Despite the fact that foreign policy was George H.W. Bush\u27s strength during the campaign, candidate Clinton was able to develop a coherent vision for America\u27s role in the world that he carried into his presidency. I argue he did so by fusing together the American exceptionalist missions of exemplar and intervention. In doing so, Clinton altered a tension embedded in debates over U.S. foreign policy rhetoric. To further differentiate his candidacy from President Bush, Clinton encased this discourse within a secular jeremiad that offered Clinton the opportunity to attack President Bush on the one hand, while articulating his own vision for American domestic and international affairs

The Debate Confessional: Newt Gingrich, John King and Atoning for Past Sins

Religious affiliation has always played a prominent role in the vetting of US presidential candidates, especially for those seeking the nomination of the Republican Party. Candidates within that party must appeal to fiscal, foreign policy and social conservatives, the last of which contain significant numbers of self-described evangelical Christians. During the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary appeals to these social conservatives became as significant a factor as any other with a Mormon candidate, a Catholic candidate who made his faith a centerpiece of his campaign, and a divorced former Speaker who recently converted to Catholicism. With the race still very much in the air, this former Speaker, Newt Gingrich, came under fire for his prior marriage and just a few days before a pivotal primary in South Carolina his ex-wife taped an interview about his marriage to her which was set to air immediately after the last debate before the election in South Carolina. At the beginning of the debate the moderator, John King of CNN, provided Gingrich an opportunity to discuss the pending interview. His response changed the scope of that primary election, helping vault Gingrich to a significant victory in South Carolina with significant support from formerly hesitant social conservatives. In this essay we examine his response to King’s opening question at the debate through the lens of image restoration theory and argue Gingrich used specific strategies to appeal for support from the social conservatives in that state

Note on Comparability of MicroCog Test Forms

This study investigated the differences between the Standard and Short forms of MicroCog by comparing Domain scores for a clinical sample of 351 substance abusers which gave a significant difference between scores on the Spatial Processing Domain. Implications for research and clinical use are discussed