Close reading #2

Barack Obama for Re-election

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/opinion/brooks-the-upside-of-opportunism.html?src=me&ref=general

Four more years?

The New York Times recently endorsed President Obama for the 2012 presidential election, not a surprise to anyone who follows politics. The NYT is generally regarded as very liberal, and this endorsement would be expected to come from them. In this editorial, the reasons for the endorsement are explained in great detail, and it is clear that the author has a very strong opinion that Obama is would be a better president than Romney.

While many might disagree, the editorial takes the view that there is a very clear contrast between Obama and Romney. On nearly every issue important to voters, the author asserts that Obama is the better choice, whether it is the economy, health care, deficit reduction, foreign affairs, civil rights, or even the election of justices. Painting a picture of Romney as the conservative that showed up for the Republican primaries, it is claimed that Romney would appoint justices that are "among the most conservative justices in the past 75 years." While Romney might have tried to tack to center as the election nears, the author claims that "Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about" whether Romney would side with the Republican party on many issues.

Through the selection and omission of certain details, this article is both overtly and covertly trying to persuade readers to vote for Obama. A conservative paper would probably place more emphasis on the high unemployment rate and the recent security problems in Libya. The claim that the stimulus bill "prevented unemployment from reaching 12 percent" would seem ridiculous to some people, who would be outraged by such a high unemployment rate, but others give credit to Obama for something remarkable: that "[he] prevented another Great Depression." This is a claim that is not supported by facts in this article even though it is the centerpiece of the argument that Obama's qualifications on the economy are better than those of Romney. 

In the diction that the author uses, the two candidates are rarely directly characterized, but there is still a noticeable slant towards Obama. Both candidates are referred to as "Mr.," which takes away the elevation of President Obama versus Governor Romney. This seems to be due to the author's desire to use facts and numbers to make his case, rather than rely heavily on rhetoric that a politically informed audience could see through. Indirectly, though, the author implies that Obama is the champion of "reproductive freedom for American women and voting rights for all," presenting a scenario in which the two candidates are the deciding factor on these issues. When talking about gay rights, "[Obama] overcame his hesitation about same-sex marriage," implying that Obama had privately been a supporter and that Romney opposes what the author calls "marriage-equality." I'm not sure many Republican columnists would be willing to concede that they oppose any form of equality, and Romney certainly wouldn't, so the use of the word equality here helps convey a positive view of Obama and shows the liberal bias of the article.

The syntax of the article is similar to the diction in that it may appear to be biased towards neither Obama nor Romney at first, but it clearly helps make the case for Obama. In some places, paragraphs begin with matter-of-fact statements about the candidates views or actions that are free of any manipulation by the author. However, he follows up a statement like that with another one that characterizes that action positively or negatively, depending on the candidate in question. When it is claimed that Romney has distanced himself from those who want "to criminalize abortion" in all cases, the very next sentence says he has contradicted his own statements on contraception by "[promising] to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood." The juxtaposition here makes the reader doubt that Romney actually has expressed his true views on abortion, without the author making any claims that would discredit him in the reader's eyes.

This piece uses sophisticated rhetoric to endorse Barack Obama in a way that seems non-partisan and reasonable, but really could be characterized as neither of those things in many of its arguments.