Blog Four

The New York Times has published an article entitled “Pain at the Pump and Beyond”. The article is basically about rising gas prices, energy problems, and how they're supposedly the Bush administration's fault. An interesting thing about this article is that the individual author was not listed. It is simply filed under the opinion/editorial section of the New York Times' website. This raises suspicion because if the author won't even claim or back up their own work, it's probably because they know something is wrong with it. The New York Times has an admittedly liberal bias, which is also important to keep in mind [1]. The Times has a large audience, mostly white businessmen who keep up with the news and politics, and they vote. This article does try to persuade people to change the White House, i.e. vote in a different kind of President.

The author claims that the Bush administration's energy policies are short sighted. He or she says that their policy is based on increasing the energy supply rather than conserving and making energy use more efficient. The author also points out that America is highly dependent on oil, and goes on to explain the impact of newly developing countries and their need for oil. An excerpt from the article states “The turmoil in financial markets -- the White House can take a good chunk of the blame for that -- has driven prices even higher...” The author does not explain how it's the White House's fault, he/she is just assuming this. The author's liberal position is now more apparent because he/she obviously thinks the government should have to deal with the economy.

No evidence is really supplied for his/her arguments about the faults of the Bush administration. Statistics about gas prices and usage rates are provided, but they don't indicate anything on the part of the Bush administration. The author even contradicts him or herself by stating that an energy bill passed just last December was a landmark since it tightened fuel standards for the first time since 1975.

The conclusion states that “A lot more needs to be done to prepare the American economy for a world of scarcer, more expensive energy,” and that to start this, America needs “to replace the oilmen in the White House with leaders who have a better grasp of the economics of energy and the interests of all Americans.” I don't think that the argument was very successful, since no proof was given for the arguments, mostly just distractions and filler. I think the only people who would be convinced are people who already agreed with the author and agreed with the assumptions that the author made. The only belief of mine that this article changed was that which I had in the integrity of the New York Times.

I don't think that this article will have much of an impact on peoples' votes due to its general weakness. Since it's such a weak article, it basically comes down to either a person simply agrees with it or does not. Sure, some interesting statistics are given about other countries' energy usages compared to Americas, but it doesn't really imply anything about the White House when looked at critically. Are the economic and energy problems the fault of the Bush administration? Perhaps. But does this article prove it? No. Holding true to it's being categorized as opinion, this articles is opinion, and hopefully voters can see that and make their own opinions.

[1]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D01E7D8173DF936A15754C0A9629C8B63