Rhetorical Analysis: Article/Editorial

BRING ON THE RUBBER CHICKEN
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: September 25, 2008 in "The New York Times"

How do you think the besieged financial community felt when the White House announced that George W. Bush was going to address the nation on television Wednesday night?

Hopeful? Terrified?

“We are in the midst of a serious financial crisis,” the president said, reading his lines flatly and stolidly, like an announcer delivering a long public-service message about new parking regulations for the holiday season. The whole event had a kind of unreality to it, since Bush has arrived at that unhappy point in American public life when a famous person begins to look like a celebrity impersonator.

There is, in a way, a kind of talent required to tell the nation that it’s teetering on the brink of disaster in a way that makes the viewers’ attention wander. Bush’s explanation about how the rescue bill would unclog the lines of credit made the whole thing sound less important than a Liquid-Plumr commercial.

But help is on the way! John McCain and Barack Obama are going to join Bush at the White House to work over the details of a rescue bill with Congressional leaders. As Obama put it: “The risk of doing nothing is economic catastrophe.”

Or, as Sarah Palin told Katie Couric on CBS News last night: “Not necessarily this, as it’s been proposed, has to pass or we’re gonna find ourselves in another Great Depression. But there has to be action taken, bipartisan effort — Congress not pointing fingers at this point at ... one another, but finding the solution to this, taking action and being serious about the reforms on Wall Street that are needed.”

So say we all.

(Palin was unable to answer questions about McCain’s record and relief for homeowners with troubled mortgages. But she did reveal forthrightly that she considers her running mate a “maverick.”)

About that rescue bill. Passing it is going to be a test of true bipartisanship, which involves both sides deciding that they will share the blame for doing something messy and unpleasant. But first, Congress has to hold hearings until every single member of the House and Senate has had a chance to yell at Henry Paulson. This can be a surprisingly useful exercise. It is much easier to work up sympathy for the rescue plan once you’ve heard Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky call it “un-American.”

Meanwhile, McCain announced that he was suspending his campaign, taking his ads off the air and going back to Washington to do something leaderlike and bipartisan. This was yet another new McCain, very different from last week’s versions, that blamed Obama for the financial meltdown while tossing out rescue plans like a desperate dart player 10 minutes before the bar closes.

“Following Sept. 11, our national leaders came together at a time of crisis. We must show that kind of patriotism now,” he said.

In deference to the current emergency, we will refrain from pointing out that when our national leaders came together following Sept. 11, the results were, all and all, worse than if they had stayed home.

Last week, while McCain was desperately reinventing his position every day, Obama was withholding, declining to take a position until the administration plan had jelled. But in the end, it turned out that their ideas were both vaguely similar and similarly vague. On Wednesday, Obama called McCain to propose issuing a joint statement. Then McCain one-upped him by announcing that he wanted to postpone Friday’s debate until the economy was rescued. His minions raced off to the news shows to say that the American people were “tired of debates and talking.”

Since Obama, the Commission on Presidential Debates and the University of Mississippi, which is hosting the debate, all say it will go on, it isn’t clear what will happen if McCain fails to show up. An empty chair? A last-minute invitation to Ralph Nader and Bob Barr to drop on by? Once in New York, when Rudy Giuliani boycotted a mayoral debate, one of his opponents spent the night twirling around a rubber chicken and the citizenry enjoyed it quite a lot. This isn’t the kind of thing you could imagine Obama doing, but I’d keep my eye on Barr.

Obama, meanwhile, had not even promised to show up for the rescue bill vote until McCain made his grand gesture. When reporters asked him on Tuesday whether he was planning to go to Washington, he was noncommittal: “If we get consensus and everybody is popping Champagne, then I’ll probably go back to campaign with folks who are having a tough time in Ohio and Michigan.”

This seemed like an overly casual way to avert economic catastrophe. Since the people of Ohio and Michigan have been visited by a presidential candidate virtually every hour for the last six months, it would seem that they could get by on their own for a day or two.

This election is turning into a Goldilocks story. One candidate’s too hot, and one’s too cool.

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS
1. Identify the Argument

The argument of Ms. Collins's editorial is that our presidential candidates, John McCain and Barrack Obama, are both extreme in opposite ways.

WATCO analyzing how McCain and Obama handled the economic crisis on determining if they would behave similiarly once they have taken office.

A/B: Determining if they would behave similiarly once they have taken office can be achieved by analyzing how McCain and Obama handled the economic crisis.
B/C: Determing if they would behave similiarly in office will help you decide who to vote for.
IA: Deciding who you vote for is influenced by analyzing how McCain and Obama handled the economic crisis.

2. Target Audience

The target audience is the group of people who are sitting on the fence about who to vote for, but are still intending to vote in November, but are also willing to do the work to be informed about the candidates. These people read the newspaper, including the editorial section, and probably utilize other forms of news media to find out all they can about their options for president. These people are most likely middle-aged, highly educated (college degree at least) and have the money and leisure time to read the paper, watch the news, and surf the internet to glean what information they can about the candidates. They probably don't affiliate with any party or have felt that the party they used to belong to has left them some how and so they are not voting along party lines.

3. How the Argument is Made

Ethos - Gail Collins is a writer for one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country and the world, "The New York Times". Although she is writing an editorial which is an oppinion piece, readers trust that, as a reporter, Collins holds to an ethocal code that charges her to only print the truth.
Pathos - Her overly sarcastic tone communicates the contempt she feels for the situation that America finds itself in - a lameduck President whom she describes as a shadow of his former self, who will be replaced by a fiery Republican who makes rash decisions, or a noncommital Democrat who waits until situations are over to voice any oppinion about them. I think she wants her audience to feel the gravity of the decision they will be making in November, but also the frustration that for four years they have been ruled by a "lame duck" and now they have two, equally annoying, options for his replacement.
Logos - Collins helps her audience to make these deductions by walking them through the candidates' statements and decisions leading up to the bailout plan with her colorful remarks and sarcastic comments leading the way to her conclusion and the basis of her argment: one candidate is too hot, the other is too cold, so which are you gonna vote for?
Sufficient Evidence - I'm not sure she provides sufficient evidence considering she did not actually interview the candidates and by nature of the fact that the people in question are politicians, who can know for sure what they really think anyway?
Accurate Evidence - Her evidence was accurate, she used their actual quotes and cited decisions they made which were made know to the public.

4. Was it Effective and Why?

I think the editorial was probably quite effective considering that it demonstrated the two extremes of both of the candidates. There was much more to say about McCain because he did so much more and made more statements, while Obama may seem to be underrepresented in the editorial, but the contrast between how much each candidate was mentioned only helped to prove how action-oriented McCain is, and how vague and obtuse Obama seems to be. Because she attacked both sides, although we can glean that she is not a fan of the Iraq war which may have alienated readers who are, the audience doesn't feel like only one candidates is being presecuted. And because both of the candidates end up looking kind of silly, it is up to the voters to decide what they are going to do in November which is what I think she meant to do with her article. Collins is not telling people who to vote for, she is just making people aware of information to help them get interested in the election and to inspire them to action.