In an interview, Patrick argued that he took his progressive values into the corporations where he worked, and implemented significant changes, such as reforming lending practices at Ameriquest, pushing Texaco to quit an industry advocacy group that was trying to undercut global warming theories, and pushing Coke to investigate human rights abuses at its Colombian bottling plants.
“I am not running as something I am not,” Patrick said. “I am a person who believes that economic expansion and social justice go hand in hand . . . people have to figure whether they want to call me a liberal looney or a corporate devil.”
Check out that dot-dot-dot just before “people.” Leaving just the word “people” implies that Patrick thinks all people have to categorize him as one bad thing or another. Does anybody honestly think a skilled speaker like Patrick wouldn’t have included some qualifier there to mean his opponents, not all people?
It’s so easy to use ellipsis to drag people down!
But this is not the only gap in Phillips’ reporting. As a coda to his article he claims Deval Patrick helped Ameriquest settle a suit over predatory lending, without pointing Deval sued Ameriquest in the first place. He was brought on board most likely because he could bring a more progressive influence than the then leaders of Ameriquest who instituted the predatory practices.
Frank Phillips has done this before. When are his editors going to start watching for these repeated omissions?
Unless you know the full quote and what was left out, how do you know it doesn’t reflect the intent of Patrick’s comments?
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Look, you don’t need to convince me that Phillips has been fed a constant stream of oppo from the Reilly camp, but nitpicking a quote without evidence detracts from the legitimate points you make.
implies to me that Phillips interviewed Deval for this piece… if it were someone else’s interview earlier, he’d give the date & media outlet, and maybe I could google up a transcript.
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I’d wager Phillips has a recording.
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I’d love it if Phillips would give us the full quote–it would not cost any extra ink to post it to the web.
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You and I agree on Phillips’ past behavior, and so, I’m arguing that with such past behavior, when Phillips puts out a quote like that one, with ellipsis in a key position, we deserve to know what he left out.
You need to have the full quotation to argue that the ellipsis is a distortion.
Given Phillips’ past behavior, he should be open about what the full quote was.
Yeah, i didn’t find a problem with that quote either. the problem with the article was leaving out anything about the history of ”’why”’ Deval left Coke, which I think is the most important part of his involvement with the company: he likes to try to work within the system, but refuses to “leave his conscience at the door”.
One thing I’ve always wondered is why Deval didn’t make a big fuss out of this. Better he quit than be a party to such a horrible operation once it was all out in public, but he couldn’t have gone whistleblower? Hearings, outrage, all that?
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I think of Sherron Watkins, from Enron. In the same place, she’d have brought a ton of shame and hearings down on Coke for their practices, rather than just quitting. Hell, I hope she’s running for something somewhere — talk about courage.
Without an investigation, there’s nothing to blow the whistle on. Watkins exposed actual wrongdoing by Enron. There was nothing for Patrick to expose except stonewalling — and everyone already knew they were stonewalling.
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It’s not as if Patrick had some evidence of wrongdoing, it’s that the company blocked a search for such evidence.