ИСТИНА

Researching a president’s linguistic style is a popular trend in political discourse studies today. Scholars seek to answer questions about why someone said something, what their verbal idiosyncrasies may show about their nature, how forecastable is their political behaviour through their key words, what factors may influence their speech across various styles and registers, and many others. Objects of research being plentiful, one chooses names which would be either well-publicized like Winston Churchill or incumbent like Barack Obama. But if in the case of Churchill it’s more like a tribute to a meaningful historical figure, in the case of Obama or anyone else whose tenure is coming to an end, researchers’ interest fades away because voters look forward to a new presidential campaign and new contenders and require of researchers well-grounded, timely forecasts about a winner and a runner-up. Bill Clinton was no exception. The juicy scandal with Monica Lewinsky broke out when Clinton was halfway through his second term, and once the impeachment saga was over, the public and researchers alike were looking in the direction of a new presidential race which was to bring the first president of a new millennium. Clinton was remembered as a sinner and a miraculous survivor, and all wanted to forget about the scandal so much that few have ever attempted to discuss the 42nd U.S. President’s name again. This is to suggest that the more presidential names sink into oblivion, the more questions remain to be investigated and answered. Bill Clinton encountered tons of adversity during his presidential reign and mysteriously managed it successfully. His verbal behaviour during the personal crisis of 1998 has been poorly analysed if it could be said to have been analysed at all. Scrutinising his communications reveals a number of important traits of his character that may help in understanding how he staved off the impeachment hammer and even how he overcame the damage to his marriage. By discussing bygone events and names we test new methods of research and thereby make contributions to political science and political linguistics. On the one hand, we continue detalizing the politician’s operational code [e.g., Renshon 2009, Strelets, 2014], which is instrumental in realizing how the man handled multiple domestic and international issues, and on the other hand, we discuss the ties between the politician’s views and modes of their expression in his language [e.g., De Landtsheer, Kalkhoven, & Broen, 2011], which is important in understanding a politician’s patterns of linguistic behavior and, possibly, predicting his steps in similar situations. Methods of political science and political linguistics are not the same but they serve the same purpose, which is to create a fuller portrait of the national leader in question and to provide insights into his inner self through his words [e.g., Luntz, 2007, Slatcher, Chung, Pennebaker, & Stone, 2007, Gavrilova, 2012, Mukhortov, 2014]. This points towards the multidisciplinary character of research and may influence the overall credibility of results. The essence of science is to be curious and data-hungry, to be open-minded and impartial. Unquestionably, no research is possible without theoretically well-grounded methods. However, one thing is to talk about methods, and quite another is to apply them. Especially, when it comes to the psychology of language and psychometrics of words. In exploring someone’s wording, good content-analysis software is a great thing but it won’t suffice. One can’t do without plausible assumptions, empirically unverifiable ideas, and heuristic argumentation. Odd as it may seem, they may turn out fruitful.