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Responses to Fitzpatrick's "Obama-dise Lost"
Rachel Spitler
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Forum
My fellow columnist, Dan Fitzpatrick, is not a bad writer.
I don't even mind who he votes for or who he encourages others to vote for, as long as his reasoning is fair and his logic is sound.
Unfortunately, last Thursday, April 10, in his column "Obama-dise Lost," Fitzpatrick wrote some things that, while clever, I find both illogical and deeply unfair.
Good faith requires me to assume that Fitzpatrick has actually read Barack Obama's March 18 speech, "A More Perfect Union," rather than just picking up quotations from other people; but if so, I am forced to conclude that he either did not understand it or deliberately suppressed the parts that were not useful to him.
As Fitzpatrick explained, Obama has a reputation among his more rabid fans that can be eyebrow-raising to those who are less (or not) devoted to his campaign. That having been reestablished, we are comfortable assuming that a skeptical criticism of Obama and his politics is forthcoming. We settle back, paper in hands, ready to be educated about the potential candidate and why, perhaps, he might not make a good president after all.
Instead, we are immediately presented with this: "Obama has two problems that give lie to his messiah-like facade - his wife, Michelle Obama, and pastor, Jeremiah Wright."
Very little actual discussion of the senator himself is to follow. As a substitute, we are pointed toward his friends and are instructed to find them unpleasant - conveniently ignoring the fact that neither Michelle Obama nor Jeremiah Wright is actually running for president.
This trick of misdirection goes even deeper.
Most of Fitzpatrick's effort to discredit Mrs. Obama is centered instead on people who work for her. To be sure, their decision to set up a camera shot with a specific arrangement of races in the background is uncomfortable to read about. But because these nameless staff members have oddly placed priorities, we're supposed to understand that Michelle herself is callous and devoid of good intentions: her "plan to fix the racial picture in America involves simply switching out who is in the frame."
I don't even mind who he votes for or who he encourages others to vote for, as long as his reasoning is fair and his logic is sound.
Unfortunately, last Thursday, April 10, in his column "Obama-dise Lost," Fitzpatrick wrote some things that, while clever, I find both illogical and deeply unfair.
Good faith requires me to assume that Fitzpatrick has actually read Barack Obama's March 18 speech, "A More Perfect Union," rather than just picking up quotations from other people; but if so, I am forced to conclude that he either did not understand it or deliberately suppressed the parts that were not useful to him.
As Fitzpatrick explained, Obama has a reputation among his more rabid fans that can be eyebrow-raising to those who are less (or not) devoted to his campaign. That having been reestablished, we are comfortable assuming that a skeptical criticism of Obama and his politics is forthcoming. We settle back, paper in hands, ready to be educated about the potential candidate and why, perhaps, he might not make a good president after all.
Instead, we are immediately presented with this: "Obama has two problems that give lie to his messiah-like facade - his wife, Michelle Obama, and pastor, Jeremiah Wright."
Very little actual discussion of the senator himself is to follow. As a substitute, we are pointed toward his friends and are instructed to find them unpleasant - conveniently ignoring the fact that neither Michelle Obama nor Jeremiah Wright is actually running for president.
This trick of misdirection goes even deeper.
Most of Fitzpatrick's effort to discredit Mrs. Obama is centered instead on people who work for her. To be sure, their decision to set up a camera shot with a specific arrangement of races in the background is uncomfortable to read about. But because these nameless staff members have oddly placed priorities, we're supposed to understand that Michelle herself is callous and devoid of good intentions: her "plan to fix the racial picture in America involves simply switching out who is in the frame."
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