Reynolds and Depression

It's intriguing to watch Glenn Reynolds link posts that he appears to implicitly agree with, albeit without openly endorsing them. The problem is that he has been linking to so many nonsensical or downright wrong posts recently that his readers must be wondering if he's just not taking this blogging thing seriously anymore. Or perhaps it's an attempt to cause his readers to question the content of the posts he links to.

Take this recent anti-Obama article from the Wall Street Journal, which supposedly shows that "Obama's speeches are downers."

The fascinating aspect of that articleis watching it contradict itself several times in quick succession. First, it asks:

"Yes, we can! Yes, we can!" Can what?

Then it says:

"What one hears is a message that is largely negative, illustrated with anecdotes of unremitting bleakness [...] It ends: "We can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred; our future will not be denied; and our time for change has come."

The author concludes:

I am not saying all of this is false. But it is a depressing message to ride all the way to the White House.

If the contradictions above are immediately apparent to you, dear reader, then I apologize for walking through them step-by-step. Apparently they weren't quite so obvious to Reynolds, who linked it without commenting.

The most glaring error is that the first statement makes a claim about Obama's speeches, which is then meant to be reiterated in the conclusion. Anyone who has taken the LSAT, which presumably Glenn Reynolds as a law professor would know about, is familiar with basic forms of textual analysis. You make a claim, you present the evidence, you re-iterate that claim by referring to the evidence, and that's it.

Yet, somehow, "Yes, we can" by the end of the quoted text, has become "bleak" and "depressing. This is somehow shown, using the authors own evidence, by Obama's claim that "we can cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism."

No, seriously. By presenting anecdotes of people who have been left behind economically and urging them and everybody else to not give up... Barack Obama is riding "a depressing message [...] all the way to the White House."

Depression, by the way, is defined as "a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity." Bleak means "offering little or no hope."

Glenn, I ask you this question directly because you are apparently refusing to make any case for the links you so helpfully provide in your formerly acclaimed blog: How is a message of "Yes, we can" in any way definable as "bleak," as that article so brazenly claims?