Week 2

After reading the first article, “Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East” is it made somewhat apparent that the author of the article is not so in favor of what President Bush does. It is not necessarily an article against Bush but the author does throw in comments to show small amounts of opinion about the President. This sentence seemed to have a somewhat sarcastic undertone, “Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs”; however I do not know if it was exactly meant in a somewhat negative way. The main part of the articles point was about President Bush’s visit overseas and the treatment he was given while he was there. One of the possible arguments that the author is trying to reinforce is the statement about how “Less than a week after the president arrived in the Middle East, three violent eruptions — an Israeli raid killing at least 18 Palestinians, 13 of whom were militants; an American Embassy car bombing in Beirut; and a luxury hotel suicide-bombing in Kabul — underscored how Sisyphean a task he has set for himself”. Dows reinforces this account with Zahar’s statement of how it is the reason for Bush’s visit, just another way to possibly show how the President is not exactly “great”.

The second article “America’s Not Ready to Talk about a Black President” seemed to be interesting while extremely confusing at the same time. I did not seem to get much from this article, except for the fact of racism and how people seem to be so racist for not too many reasons. According to this article America might be ready for a black president but not ready to talk about one. Honestly to me, that does not make much sense. Unless the author is trying to say, we are ready to consider the notion to make it look like were not racists, but when it comes down to the actuality of it, we don’t want it. This article seems to be written from the perspective of someone who does not like Obama because of sentences like, “So rather than saying "Rock of Love" has more substance than Obama, reporters just smile.” However, the author wants to make you think that his opinion is the right opinion, especially by his somewhat threatening last sentence of “And if you disagree with me, then you're a probably a racist and worse than Hitler.” Now that’s a bit intense, but everyone has their own opinion, and you don’t have to be racist to disagree with the things he is saying.