Blog Critique

In this blog published by Ann Althouse it confronts the recent uproar regarding the Democratic Senator, Elizabeth Warren, and her ethnic background linked to the Native Americans. Over the past couple of weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been waiting for her DNA test results to come back to prove to President Trump that she is in fact partly Native American. In this blog, Althouse does not make it clear as to who her audience is, instead it seems as if she is thinking out loud to herself, starting most of her sentences off with “I”. Personally, I believe the credibility in this blog is non-existent due to the bias opinions given like when Althouse says, “I don't think you should be checking the box and allowing Harvard to claim to have a Native American professor based on 1/32 or 1/512, but I like that Warren has removed the basis for inferring that she won't get the test because she knows she's been lying.” and this is one of many opinions that the author states that I believe is extremely uncredible. The argument is unclear because her first statement is completely different from her third or fourth, but what I am getting out of this is that she believes that Warren has been lying about her heritage and is as Native American as most Europeans are, and the only evidence she gives to her “audience” are her own bias opinions and a few statistics from Stanford University. With every great argument, I believe that when it comes to persuading people to be on your side, strong statistics and statements need to be used in order for that to happen, which is something this blog lacked a lot in. Concluding my evaluation, I saw absolutely no logic in this blog. As I said, the author continues to use bias opinions and gives terrible examples, which lead me to the conclusion that there was not logic put into this, just a bunch of opinionated thoughts the author is trying to express. Overall, the author of this blog did not do a great job of creating and explaining her argument, while also lacking an accurate and credible source to backup her evidence.

Argument Against Kavanaugh: Revised In The Eyes of A Student

On Monday, October 1st, 2018, CNN published an article titled For the good of us all, Brett Kavanaugh should step aside. This topic is something that I have educated myself on, kept up with, and am very passionate about and I believe that the author, Ana Navarro, who argues Kavanaugh’s deserving of a spot on the Supreme Court did a great job on her published argument on the matter. The article is started off with Navarro clearly stating her argument by saying “I did not oppose Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court at first, but I do oppose it now.” she then goes on to back up her argument by giving her audience an explanation as to why, which is, the character issues raised about him. With every great argument you must back up your reasoning with statistics, known facts, or personal opinions and beliefs, which Navarro did a great job of. Another example of this was when she writes about the process of selecting a supreme court justice, including facts like once the nominee is officially set in place, there is no way to remove of that person by any circumstance, except death. Since these circumstances are so permanent, Navarro claims, “A Supreme Court Justice should have intellectual heft, judicial temperament and lifelong fitness of character.” in which Navarro claims Kavanaugh lacks in except intellectual heft, which she believes should not be the only reason for being appointed as a Supreme Court Justice. I believe that all of the opinions and facts the author stated in this article to back up her argument were great, but could have been more in depth, like possibly going into more background as to why her opinions on Kavanaugh changed. In one of the last paragraphs, Navarro digs deep into the trial against Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, giving her honest opinion by telling the audience she most definitely believes Ford, along with the reasoning as to how Kavanaugh’s actions during the trial have led her to become opposed to his upcoming position. She then concludes her argument when she states “I now believe Kavanaugh lacks the judicial temperament and character to serve on the Supreme Court.” which I believe was the strongest part of her argument by far because a great conclusion is straightforward, gets to the point, and concludes the initial argument stated. All in all, I think this argument was a seven out of ten solely because she did miss out on some opportunities to support her argument and at some points in the article, I felt a little bit lost, but overall she stated her argument, backed it up, and concluded it very professionally and maturely.