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Burned Up and Burned Out by Politics

By Rosie O’Donnell

Internet as the “new media” eliminated the middleman such as publishers and editors, who is in turn serving the interesting of the institution that hired them. Blogs, through the internet have provided a ground for a more direct and free form of speech. A blog is made effective and engaging when its author injects his or her own voice into the article. However this is also when subjective is lost and all you get is a good laugh or whatever you wish to hear. I have recently read the post “Burned Up and Burned Out by Politics” by Rosie O’Donnell in the Huffington post. She has constructed successful persuasive essay through strategic use of metaphors, dictions, and word choice that “really gets to you.”

In the first sentence, Rosie wrote, “President Bush almost killed me. It’s true, and I have the scars to prove it — multiple scars that are part of the public record.” Such exaggerations instantly established a stage for her to build on. She then rambled on to say that “It was 2000, and the Republican National Convention was on television. The whole affair felt something like a home invasion, with a chronically smirking and arrogant George W. Bush as ringleader.” All of these drove her to turn off the TV and go fishing. She bought gears and a knife to cut off the price tags which also stabbed her as well. This well placed metaphor contributed to Rosie’s image as a humorous, yet zealous blogger who really wants to get her point across. And she was very successful at that.

Further more, Rosie unleashed a frenzy of statistics that gives her accusations credibility. These includes “…935 documented lies told by the Bush administration”, “an unjust war, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians and nearly 4000 Americans.” “$9 trillion dollar debt,” and “$10 billion dollar third-quarter profit Exxon recently reported.” Such information instantly established a strong tone, a tone that is against what this administration has done during its reign. But more importantly, Rosie calibrated her words carefully like a skilled swordsman stalking its pray. Why? Since the majority of her readers despise the current president anyways, she knew that we will go for whatever she dishes out. Though certainly chances are the readers would have agreed with her even without these statistics, however providing such details would attribute to her image as a creditable source for future news events. Essentially, it pays for her to be subjective, however, can we afford it?

Diction was also an important part of Rosie’s strategy in gaining our likening. Just like all movie stars, it’s not really about what they say but how they say it. This is perhaps the most successful aspect of this particular post. First, she described President Bush’s presidency as the “demoralizing Bush years.” This accurately expressed her view, and probably the view of most of the audiences. Secondly, she said that Bush’s speech is surrounded “with all that cocky, cowboy arrogance.” Which doesn’t really describe half of the things that bothers me, but we can let it slide.

Last she drove her point home in saying that “I have felt burned up and burned out by politics.” This further relates to the mind set of many people, who feels helpless under an administration dominated by corporate interests, and no long feel the zeal for political endeavors. However, the brilliance of this post is not to leave everyone in despair, but to say take advantage of our vulnerable mind sets and revealing the true purpose of her post. She suggested that Hillary and Obama if teamed together, has what it takes to turn the country around.

Successful construction of a persona is vital for the success of a blog because it is one of the most effective ways in getting in touch with your reader. Although internet as a medium does offer ways such as video streaming, however sophistication in constructing a not only logical, but appealing argument is required. And this could possibly be accomplished through give your blog a strong persona, a voice that the readers could relate to. In Rosie’s case, she first reminded us our feeling of hopelessness in face of the Bush administration then brought up hope is in sight. This is lot more effective than to speak of “hope” in the very first sentence, because getting the readers on the same page is half of the battle.