TOW #21 Influencers (Cora Frazier)

Cora Frazier refutes GQ's claim that President Barack Obama is not an influential person.

   
     Cora Frazier, a frequent contributor to the Shouts & Murmurs column of the New Yorker, challenges GQ's recent list of the "25 Least Influential People of 2013." In particular, she focuses on the ranking of Barack Obama, listed as #17. In this sarcastic work, Frazier debates that ranking sarcastically, making the point that if the President is one of the least influential people in the world, he would have had to have had less of an impact than her. Using fictional scenarios, Frazier presents a series of examples comparing his actions to hers so that her audience sees fault in GQ's list. She believes Obama is extremely influential and should be respected as such.
     The most obvious rhetorical device employed by Frazier is her structure of comparing and contrasting the actions of Obama and her. This often employs humor as she builds with an example of Obama's influence and then uses an anecdote of her own experience in comparison. For example, she writes "Obama saw the implementation of his historic health-care legislation, which Administrations have been trying to pass for years, while I wrote the wrong Social Security number on my gynecologist form." Each example compares similar categories of actions (in this case health care), but the influence of Obama could not appear greater. The humor of the difference is an appeal to pathos, pulling the reader in and nudging them onwards to each great achievement of our President. It also diffuses any of the partisan tension usually seen in an argument about the effectiveness of a president.
     Despite the humor, the article is a really clever appeal to logos. She presents the claim she intends to refute first (that Obama is one of the least influential people in the world), further defines it (if the list hypothetically incorporates everyone in the world, she must have been considered), and then presents evidence in the form of anecdotes (like the one seen above). She provides a little back-handed analysis, though it is not really necessary given her examples. For example, she talks about how she writes checks out of order "as a kind of quiet rebellion against Chase Bank...I don't see how this could possibly put me higher, influence-wise, than a man with the power to launch a nuclear weapon." She makes it quite clear that her influences are personal and small-scale, whereas Barack Obama leads an entire nation.
    Overall, this is probably the funniest satire I have read in a while. I think it was very effective at completing Frazier's purpose, if not a little cheeky at times. I appreciated how it diffused partisanship, even though she is clearly in support of the Democratic Party.