Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Obama Apologizes?
A recent interview with President Obama related to our class discussion on genres and more specifically apologia. On November 4th Obama took part in an interview with Steve Croft from 60 minutes on CBS. The interview took place two days after the midterm defeat and was the only interview President Obama sat for. The discourse between Obama and Croft was reminiscent of an apologia speech. In this interview Obama seemed to be reaching out to the public apologizing that he had not lived up to America’s expectations and providing reasons as to why he was defeated in the midterm elections. He admits to not living up to people’s expectations when he says, “people I think expect that we would have made more progress than we have on the economic front. And I think that was uppermost on people's minds.” Further into the interview Obama works towards rehabilitating his ethos through bolstering and providing specific examples that focus on positive things his government has done. Obama provides an examples of how his government has produced jobs and is working towards lowering the unemployment rate e.g. “Absolutely it's produced jobs. And I'll give you a specific example…five years we went from two percent of the world mark potentially to 40 percent of the world market. And those jobs are in places like Michigan and Ohio that had been really hard hit.” His speech is reminiscent of an apologia as there appears to be an admittance of failure, rehabilitation, and bolstering but he does not officially say he is sorry or regrets what he did just the circumstance at which he came into office.
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Sarah I think you make some good points here but I think you can go further into saying that he as well is using blostering by saying that there are jobs but the jobs that he has made available are for nurses however there are not enough nurses to fill these positions and he has created jobs for. He also says that after many manufacturer workers lost their jobs there were jobs made available in construction but by no fault of anyone the job market has slowed down as well. I think he is saying look I've been here to help to make a change and he is but not as big of a change that everyone else wants to see. He is putting money into community colleges and into student loan programs to help people to be able to achieve their goals. He is as well using transcendence when he says that we cannot disinvest in education or clean energy, he is saying that he is still dedicated to those things and because of that he is acting as a great man who is there to help the education system and the enviornment.
ReplyDeleteJust as when we seen Bill Clinton apologized for his private acts politicians often list positives when talking about negative subjects. President Obama highlighted the problem and areas such as Ohio and Michigan going through hard times but never apologized to Americans for his effort or lack of. Just as many Presidents such as George W. Bush he does not admit of doing things wrong until there presidency passes like the Operation of Freedom War won statement. Obama will one day admit he made mistakes in the white house but with his admittance there will be many facts about how he did so much right will in the white house.
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