The rhetoric you use to make your point says a lot about a) the strength of your argument; 2) you personally.
There is no better example of this then some of the OpEds about the current and past Presidents. They are rife with bad logic, political animus, and sheer partisanship. I don’t care id they are trashing George W. Bush or Barack H. Obama, they can be revealing about their writer.
The issue isn’t whether they are right or wrong; Hell, I’m wrong all the time. It is whether they are an honest broker of information — or deceptive weasels.
For example, on March 3, 2009 — 1 year ago — the WSJ OPEd blamed the market collapse on the newly elected President. They argued that the Dow was issuing a referendum on Obama:
“As the Dow keeps dropping, the President is running out of people to blame. As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama’s policies have become part of the economy’s problem.”
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Since that column, the Dow has rallied near 70%. Surely, if Obama was to blame for the Dow’s collapse during his first 5 weeks in office, then he most certainly must deserves an equal amount of credit for the Dow’s stupendous performance a year later?!? Somehow, the WSJ has never got around to giving a parallel credit equal to the blame they doled out.
Of course, blaming any President for a market rally or fall is a mug’s game. Market’s go up and down due to many factors; President’s have far less control over the economy than is widely believed.
Draw your own conclusions about this WSJ OpEd writer and their moral fiber.
Whenever you find an article or OpEd that is unusually strident or one-sided or misleading, cut & paste it into a calendar program . Diary it for an extended period of time. You may find it quite amusing to go back and reread a year or so later. I suggest you do it with whatever paper or pundit (or blog) you prefer.
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Source:
The Obama Economy
WSJ OpEd
MARCH 3, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604419092515347.html
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