Are you familiar with “Straw Man Arguments” or the “Straw Man Fallacy”? Being a long-time denizen of Metafilter, I have become quite familiar with them over the years. Here’s a brief definition:
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.
You can read more about them at the source of the quote above or at Wikipedia (more thorough explanation).
The reason I bring this up now? Jennifer Loven, an AP writer, recently released a story concerning President Bush’s use of Straw Man Arguments, which he does often and repeatedly. This story is causing quite a flap and is being seen as an “attack” on the President.
When the president starts a sentence with “some say” or offers up what “some in Washington” believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.
The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.
He typically then says he “strongly disagrees” — conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.
Sorry, but I can’t deny that Bush does just that in every speech that I hear or read. If you can’t see it, you aren’t looking or you aren’t capable of seeing the fallacy that he has set up just so he can knock it down, thus making it appear as though his opponents position has been refuted, when in fact, it has not. This ploy is no more clever when the president does it than when the members of Metafilter use this tactic during arguments.
And why is it that any time someone says anything about Bush that isn’t all rosy and along the “party line”, it’s considered an attack and demands that heads should roll follows shortly thereafter? What’s the matter? Can’t take criticism? Don’t believe in a free press and free speech? Get the hell over yourselves already. If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the Oval Office.
Furthermore, on a somewhat unrelated note, I am sick to death of hearing people refer to Bush as “our Commander-in-Chief”. Unless you are in the military, he is not our Commander-in-Chief, he’s our president.
Something favored by liars everywhere is speaking in the passive voice, with nary an attribution. I enjoy interrupting these folks and asking who said, thought, did, et cetera, until I exasperate them into silence. The worst abusers are people on TV, as they cannot be challenged by the viewer.
The reason people defend Bush, a no-load drunk who’d have a hard time selling automobiles for a living, is because if he self-destructs on air, the whole facade of this monumental money-laundering scheme going on between the DoD and its contractors would be one step closer to obvious. These scallywags and their medicine show don’t intend to leave town until every last nickel has been snatched. Why his handlers keep trotting him out every day lately to whine about his war is beyond me; it seems Rove may have run out of ideas and is inadvertently courting the disaster I just mentioned. Whatever the reason, his opponents couldn’t buy this kind of negative propaganda, and now they’re getting it free.
“I am sick to death of hearing people refer to Bush as “our Commander-in-Chief.” Well Bush, and all all presidents are referred to as the Commander-in-Chief, even Bill Clinton. Although most military people I know didn’t see Bubba as Commander of much, let alone the military. I’ll never forget how they, the Clinton entourage when they hit DC, treated the Marines who were stationed at the White House. Shameless arrogant fucks as they were, still are.
I was watching Imus this morning and I see where Richard Engel, the NBC reporter in Baghdad finally got off his balcony and was delivery his news segment from downtown Baghdad. I wonder if that had anything to do with the bitch slapping session that Laura Ingraham delivered on David Gregory of the Today show Tuesday morning. Finally someone had the balls, Laura is a female, to tell NBC your news is being reported by your personnel who don’t leave the safe harbor of the Green Zone. In other word they mail the reports in the do no investigating, they depend solely on runners for their news. David Ignatius of the Washington Post and Ralph Peters both critic of Bush and the war, are now saying thing even in Baghdad are doing much better than what the general news media is reporting. Ralph Peters was in the Shiites section of Bagdad when the Masque was blown up, and if you recall all the major news outlets where reporting Iraq was on the verge of a civil war. Peters said no such thing happen in an area where unrest and rioting should of been happening. Everyone went about the normal business, and hold on to your hats, but the Iraqis were even friendly to the American military in the area. The children where in the streets playing. Freedom of the press is a great thing as long as they print the truth as it really is, and not report it to bolster their own agenda.