Obama's Anti-lobbyist Policy

Not really having any idea about what I could possibly do rhetorical analysis of, I went straight to google and simply typed in “news article,” after clicking on one of the top links I found myself at the New York Times website, reading an article about Pres. Obama and his policy towards lobbyists. Now obviously the NY Times is a notoriously liberal, Democratic paper; which actually makes me smile a little that they aren’t automatically praising every piece of ground on which Mr. Obama treads. “Obama’s Pledge on Donations Faces Reality” written by Jeff Zeleny offers are critical review over some of Obama’s campaign rhetoric, mainly that he is attempting to institute a new rule in the White House “no lobbyists allowed. “

One strategy used by Zeleny, a few times, is the one sentence paragraph, which sets up a subsequent or finishes an antecedent paragraph, bringing more focus to the topic of that paragraph which has been separated from it. This seems to be a very effective tactic as it focuses attention on the sentence, framing it in the white background like it is its own heading, making these statements in bold letters would probably have the same effect, however this way is far more subtle.

Zeleny uses an authoritarian tone throughout the article, which gives the article credibility and makes Mr. Zeleny sound as if he were an expert on the topic. Since I don’t really have any background knowledge about this particular subject, I would tend to believe him if it wasn’t for the fact that he seems to make contradictory statements throughout; at one point Obama seems to be doing all he can to “keep his word” only to later say that because the Democrats are falling behind in funding that they sent out “urgent appeals” to lobbyists around the country to send money.

The sources, pulled from both main parties, also give validity to the article as it shows that Mr. Zeleny consciously recognizes the other side. The brief statement about Obama’s campaign rhetoric is simple enough to not diminish the president or what he is trying to do in changing the structure of Washington politics; as well this is a pretty general statement heard many times about a lot of politicians. So while it seems like a damaging statement, most of the audience, who would presumably be a liberal Democrat, would probably gloss over it, simply acknowledging that the writer actually quoted a Republican without the quote being detrimental to the article.

All in all I think the article was generally well written and laid out, however there are some changes I would make, Mr. Zeleny seems to know his audience.