Dick Gephardt Rhetorical Analysis

On Saturday December 19, 1998, then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) was preparing to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives in advance of the vote on four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. Clinton had been charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and most notably, an abuse of power; he had attempted to conceal an affair with Monica Lewinsky both when she was a White House intern and when she became a paid employee. Through his speech, Gephardt attempted to persuade the House to vote for a resolution of censure rather than impeachment; overall, however, he advocated for a significant shift in the behavior of politicians in Washington, where any mistake, past or present, was fair game and often used

in personal attacks. Ultimately, his proposal was ruled irrelevant by Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), who had been appointed to preside over the meetings. While his speech ultimately did not bring the resolution of censure as he desired, Gephardt’s work was successful on paper - his masterful usage of code grooming, identity strategy, and the halo effect combine to highlight a significant problem that has corrupted Washington for decades.

Throughout the speech, there is a common thread of code grooming, as Gephardt tries to appeal to the religious crowd within his audience.

This rhetoric is not surprising, as his request for unification across party lines fits into the biblical idea of “love thy neighbor.” The first instance of this appeal comes when he is discussing Rep. Bob Livingston’s choice to retire, “And I pray with all my heart that he will reconsider this decision” (p. 1). Gephardt is doing two things here: one, he is using religious code words like “and” and “pray” to convey the strength of his connection to the Bible and religion in general; “and” is quite often used in the former, and praying is a common practice for any religious person. Two, as a bonus, his code grooming here works as an ethos appeal - it endeavors to convince the audience that he has a connection to God and will not make light of the significance of religion in his

decisions.
The second instance of religious code grooming comes in the next paragraph when he professes that no House representative is perfect, “No one standing in this house today can pass a Puritanical test of purity that some are demanding that our elected leaders take” (p. 1). Once again, he is using religion to get his point across; however, with this statement, he is honing in on a particular aspect of his idea - unreasonable expectations. To this point, he is using the ethos appeal he is continually building with his religious rhetoric to highlight the fact that all religious men try to be the best they can be, but by nature of the world - they fall short.
The last instance of code grooming in Gephardt’s speech lies in the final words, as he seemingly pleads to a higher power to help Congress save itself from its corruption, “May God have mercy on this Congress and may Congress have the wisdom and the courage and the goodness to save itself today” (p. 2). As his speech comes to a close, Gephardt is making the last religious ethos appeal that he has worked up to throughout his remarks; by employing the phrase “May God have mercy on…”, he is tying up his credibility in that department by doing one of the most religious things he can possibly do: pray. By doing this, he is not only doing the aforementioned ethos appeal, he is officially bringing himself down to the level of everyone in the room; as all of the religious men in the room pray, they can appreciate what he’s doing, which can only add to his credibility.
Gephardt continues to align himself with the ideas of the audience by employing the “identity” strategy. Fitting back into the religious bent of his speech, he is using the strategy to make his fellow Congressmen see and agree with the points he is making about changing the rhetoric of political dispute in Washington; he wants to see the actions and behaviors he proposes as ones that define them as good, hardworking, Christian men. The first time this is seen in Gephardt’s speech is when he pleads to Congress to not hold everyone to a standard of moral perfection, “If we demand that mere mortals live up to this standard, we will see our seats of government lay empty, and we will see the best, most able people unfairly cast out of public service” (p. 1). In addition to strengthening the ethos appeal that is mentioned earlier in the paper, he is attempting to convince the audience that as good people, they should not hold everyone to an impossible moral standard, and as humans, they deserve to not be held to that expectation. To this point, he is trying to get them to rally behind the identity of a “decent, hardworking man” in hopes of convincing them to lay off each other about every little mistake they make - for after all, we are only human.
Much like his discourse on not holding politicians to unreasonable standards, his second example of identity strategy comes in the form of a plea for bipartisanship in both the impeachment dealings of Bill Clinton and in general, “This is exactly why we need this today to be bipartisan. This is why we ask the opportunity to vote on a bipartisan censure resolution, to begin the process of healing our nation…” (p. 2). With this statement, Gephardt is approaching a different aspect of the politician identity - the teamwork side. No matter whether you are working as a treasurer for the government of a town with 300 people, or you are the American U.N. Ambassador, the work of a politician relies heavily on teamwork, even with people who don’t share your political views. As a result, the idea has become heavily baked into the job description. Through his words mentioned above, Gephardt is using teamwork to form a syllogism of sorts: teamwork is a part of the identity of a politician / voting on a bipartisan censure resolution is a great example of teamwork / therefore, voting on that bipartisan censure resolution is a part of your identity. Through this, he is using his tools to bring Republicans across the aisle.
Finally, Gephardt leverages national identity to convince the Congress to work together by alluding to the Founding Fathers of America, “Let us step back from the abyss and let’s begin a new politics of respect and fairness and decency which raises what has come before” (p. 2). In evoking positive images of the foundation of American government, he is reminding them of the brotherhood and honor it represents. Even though he mentions few words, the images they create are boundless - men uniting together, signing into effect a newly independent nation, free to do government differently from their oppressors in the British monarchy. Additionally, his words remind the audience that while society has progressed quite far, the idea of unison brought forth by the founders remains as relevant as ever. Through his statement, he is connecting this history with the bipartisan censure resolution - he is attempting to attach to the legislation a stamp of brotherhood and unison that has and will remain integral to the process of government. As a result, by the process of identity strategy, his rhetoric intends to convey to the audience that what he wants is in their best interest of staying true to the founding principles of American government.
Lastly, Gephardt utilizes a foundational technique of rhetoric called “the halo” throughout his remarks. Like the identity strategy, the method ties the ideas of the orator to the audience’s best version of themselves in hopes of convincing them to see it as a part of who they are. Even so, these two approaches diverge in that that the halo uses a more delineated structure, involving three components - the pith, the value, and the symbol - the totality of which can be used as a rallying point for the group as the speaker convinces them to believe what he wants them to.
Soon after he lambasts the Congressmen who harangue their peers for every little mistake, Gephardt launches into the first part of his halo - the pith, “We need to stop destroying imperfect people at the altar of an unobtainable morality” (p. 1). Specifically, he is outlining the specific issue at hand: the disdain for some Congressmen on the account of others’ belief that a simple human mistake constituted a high crime. By approaching the problem first rather than jumping directly into the action he wants, he is easing his audience into his argument by putting forth something that is indisputable and saving the more-opinion based statements for later.
Later on, Gephardt hits the values piece of the halo when he calls for bipartisanship in Congress, “This is exactly why we need today to be bipartisan…to begin the process of healing our nation and healing our people” (p.

2). He has begun to make the push towards his ultimate goal of unison by bringing out the time-honored political value of cooperation to which he will attach the action he desires. Through these words, he is hitting the reason for government right on the nail - for people to work together towards the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - and reminding the politicians of their roots so they can begin to see the action as a reflection of their vocational

identity.
As he makes his final call to Congress for unison, Gephardt touches upon the symbol - the final piece of the halo - when he evokes images of a government of years past that upheld respect and decency, “Let us step back from the abyss and let’s begin a new politics of respect and fairness and decency which raises what has come before” (p. 2). With the inclusion of the symbol, Gephardt completes his halo - he has taken the issue of Congressional personal life nitpicking and used the values he has appraised from the Congress to get them to rally around the symbol of the Founding Fathers’s government. Ultimately, this method should lead to them believing in his call for unison and decency in the government, and upholding that position.
Ultimately, the success of this speech did not come in the traditional sense, as the speech failed to convince the House to unite as one and vote for a censure resolution to begin the new era of bipartisanship - instead, they stuck to the plan of impeachment for Bill Clinton. Rather, the quality is in the rhetoric - the terrific combination of code grooming, identity strategy, and halo accomplishes something Gephardt set out to do with his remarks - through the context of Bill Clinton’s impeachment debacle, he wanted to point out the disease of gossip and disunion that has plagued Washington for centuries. Certainly, while the speech will not be considered one that successfuly convinced its audience, it succeeds in its own way through the variety and strength of the rhetorical methods used in it.