Blog Stage 3

For my article I choose to do a commentary on the piece, “WhiteHouse says Flynn deserved “due process” before curtailing his access – that’snuts.” This piece was written by John Aravosis, who is the executive editor of AMERICAblog. He is reputable in the sense that he worked in the US Senate, Children’s Defense Fund, and United Nation Development Program amongst other credible sources. However reputable he is, this piece is still an opinion as it is blatantly stated in the title. 

Aravosis seems to be targeting the American people, not necessarily any political group. He makes a compelling argument when mentioning the severity of waiting 18 days to make a move. Comparing his breach in security to an assassin in the oval office. Although this seems like an exaggeration it makes sense. How is it that the federal attorney general made two separate warnings saying security had been breached, and it took 18 days for moves to be made. Had it been known that an assassin was plotting to kill the president, 18 days would have been unacceptable. So why is it that the entire country’s security is jeopardized by a foreign adversary and the president doesn’t bat an eye? Aravosis implies that it is possibly due to Trumps arrogance and pride in his choice of Flynn that lead to this reckless behavior. While I think that his opinion is valid I think that it is distracting from the piece as there is no way to prove these assumptions because they are completely subjective. As stated in the handout, good arguments cannot be based on gut feelings but rather need to be based on hard verified evidence. The article could have done without this, but this is an opinionated article 

Finally, the main focus of this piece is about the suggestion Sean Spicer made calling for a due process before cutting him off. The ideal way to handle this would have been to remove his top security clearances, and put him on administrative leave pending investigation. The gray area is in why this took 18 days and they simply fired the man rather than have given him his Constitutional rights of a due process. This raises a lot of flags as it should, and for the most part Aravosis gives a compelling argument that even with his strong opinion he is successful at convincing me.