An Argumentative Editorial

When I started reading this article, "An Absence of Leadership" in the New York Times, I thought it was going to have a poor argument. The opening sentence is; "It took President Bush until Wednesday night to address the American people about the nation’s financial crisis, and pretty much all he had to offer was fear itself." This is a very opiniated statement, and was not backed up by many facts. For those like me that did not see President Bush address the nation and supposedly offer fear, it would have been very helpful facts to serve as logical evidence. Later in the article, the author does show how Bush offers fear, by saying "our entire economy is at danger (if Congress does not pass his bailout plan.)" It would have been helpful for including evidence at the beginning, to make the reader want to read more.

Personally, I first became interested in the article when the author brought into consideration Barack Obama and John McCain's reactions to the financial crisis. "Given Mr. Bush’s shockingly weak performance, the only ones who could provide that are the two men battling to succeed him. So far, neither John McCain nor Barack Obama is offering that leadership." I have been reading so many articles that are either pro Obama or Pro McCain. I have seen many articles that point out all the things that one of the candidates is doing wrong. It is refreshing to have a unique viewpoint on the well-discussed subject of the upcoming election. I agree with the author's statement that "What makes it especially frustrating is that this crisis should provide each man a chance to explain his economic policies and offer a concrete solution to the current crisis." The article is very strong in logical evidence with direct quotes from Obama and McCain's response to the financial crisis. The article also uses ethical/emotional evidence when it mentions that the increase in taxes are coming out of our pocketbooks, and that Bush's current plan does nothing to improve the taxes for most Americans. People who are taxpayers (everyone) can relate to this and will feel like their taxes should improve and thus want to agree with the article's argument.