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Foreign Policy Rhetoric In The 1992 Presidential Campaign: Bill Clinton's Exceptionalist Jeremiad, Jason Edwards

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This essay examines presidential candidate Bill Clinton's rhetoric regarding America's role in the world during the 1992 presidential campaign. Despite the fact that foreign policy was George H.W. Bush's strength during the campaign, candidate Clinton was able to develop a coherent vision for America's 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 …