Bush Only Politician to Use Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches
This is hilarious: a “straight” news article from the AP titled Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches. Here are some of the unbiased excerpts:
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.
. . . .
A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as “a bizarre kind of double talk” that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.
“It’s such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people,” Fields said. “All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What’s striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff.”
Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters.
I found this at Power Line, which has much more.
Good thing Democrats don’t do this.
A “straight” news article. Like, Clay Aiken straight.
See Dubya (6574c2) — 3/19/2006 @ 1:42 pmGoldstein has been taking this on for a couple of days.
CraigC (4525c5) — 3/19/2006 @ 6:06 pmI guess these “straw men” are in the eyes of the beholders.
Never heard one of these arguments before. No straw men arguments about Social Security “privatization”. Not a single straw man argument about the “illegal” NSA program “spying on Americans”. No straw men when we were told Reagan was a war monger. No straw men when we were told that Reagan didn’t care about people with AIDS. No straw men when the argument is made that conservatives are anti-environment and anti-poor, and that Bush wants to increase the level of arsenic in the water.
Nope, not a one, not ever …
It is nice to know that the “loyal opposition” has unmasked this nefarious republican debating tactic. Now, I presume, we can return to the fair representation of conservative arguments that we heard for so many years before Bush came to town.
Could it be that what is really bothering “specialist in presidential rhetoric”, Wayne Fields is that Bush has borrowed a page from another team’s play book? I mean, after all “everyone does it” but what makes Bush particularly bad is that he does it so well.
Whatever …
Harry Arthur (b318a5) — 3/19/2006 @ 9:11 pmBush uses straw man arguments, but he covers them with the critical “some say” label. Thus he is still being honest, since in each case we could produce someone who does say that. The AP reporter claims “some” is code for dems – thus he assumes what Bush means in order to make Bush’s arguments into straw-man arguments.
No such assumption is required for Democrats. The Democrat straw man is a real straw man, since they attribute bogus arguments specifically to Bush and other Republicans all the time. That is the true straw man.
Amphipolis (fdbc48) — 3/20/2006 @ 5:58 amGlad to see the Aristotelians in the MSM nailing Bush for using the “straw man” argument. Now they should turn the guns of reason on the ad hominem argument . . . without which, ninety per cent of the Left’s argumentation evaporates like fog.
Bilwick (bd15da) — 3/20/2006 @ 6:54 amBush may not be the only one in Washington to attack straw men, but from my vantage point, he’s the most influential. It’s refreshing to see someone care enough to point it out. Besides, come on–Bush employs the “there are some who say that [caricature]” device ALL THE TIME. It’s not just a straw man, it’s a weak debate tactic that conveniently lets him reframe the issue into his own talking points instead of addressing criticism directly in context.
(And while we’re on the subject of fallacies, points for those who can spot and name Bilwick’s above.) 😉
Tom (f35e9a) — 3/20/2006 @ 7:46 amIt doesn’t matter whether Dems use the technique or not. It is important that the speaker, in this case the President be called out on it.
That Lawyer Dude (d656d4) — 3/20/2006 @ 8:04 amWhat really is troubling is that we are not teaching Rhetoric technique in schools. Kids need to be able to see thru the straw man, comparing apples to oranges and misdirection (all forensic speech techniques) in order to be more informed citizens. Teaching children to question their leaders and their government is a healthy habit. I am not advocating they be cynics, only that they not fall for everything because it is said by an elected official or written in a newpaper or said on tv.
I applaud this article and hope we see more like it, no matter the political stripe of the speaker.
Well, no one’s taken you up on your challenege so far, Tom, so can you enlighten us on my fallacies? I know from personal experience that when I want clear thinking and hard-headed logic, there’s no group I turn to more often than “liberals.”
Bilwick (bd15da) — 3/20/2006 @ 9:05 amPatience, Bilwick…you just provided us with another one to evaluate! I’ll wait a little while to see if anyone else wants in before giving away the answers.
In the meantime, you might try addressing my claims about the topic at hand, rather than making irrelevant assumptions about my politics.
Tom (764816) — 3/20/2006 @ 10:51 amI don’t mean this insultingly, Tom, but your claims about the topic at hand don’t really interest me enough to address them. What interests me (in a very mild way) is the topic at hand as framed by our host: AP (which I gather has pretty much dropped whatever pretense it has as an objective news-reporting source as it pretty much comes out of the closet as another battallion in what has been so aptly named “The Hive”) posing as the Fallacy Police. And of course the unlikelihood that it will turn this new-found Aristotelian commitment to logic and apply it to the straw-man arguments (or as I suggested, the ever-popular ad hominem arguments) –indeed, the whole armory of fallacious arguments–employed by Bush’s opponents. Besides, didn’t AP get the memo? “Liberals” and the Left abandoned whatever theoretical commitment to logic about the time Adlai Stevenson died. Didn’t the Sixties’ New Left expose logic as an oppressive tool of The Man? It’s all feeling now, man! That, at least, was the message I got when I was in collegeduring the Age of Love. As a libertarian I don’t know how many times I’ve been chided for putting logic above “compassion.” But maybe there’s been a new memo: with Bush being a religionist, maybe the Hive’s party line is “We’re the logical ones.” I’m an outside, so I wouldn’t know. In any event, I’m still interested in hearing whatever fallacies I’ve employed, especially since as far as I know I haven’t really made any arguments but rather a few snarky observations (based, however, on personal experience).
Bilwick (bd15da) — 3/20/2006 @ 12:57 pmYour response is interesting, Bilwick. Thanks for taking the time to clarify.
I took your supposedly snarky observations above as statements which belied your actual sentiments. Thus, here’s my take:
Argument #1 (from Comment #5): 90% of the Left’s argumentation evaporates like fog without the use of the ad hominem fallacy.
From what I can tell, this is just gross hyperbole, combined with an attempt to invoke Tu Quoque (i.e. “…but THEY use fallacies too!!!” rather than addressing the substance of the original claim).
Argument #2 (Comment #8): …can you enlighten us on my fallacies? I know from personal experience that when I want clear thinking and hard-headed logic, there’s no group I turn to more often than “liberals.”
Would it be wrong to extract your argument thusly: your claim will be questionable because you are a liberal, and in my personal experience, liberals do not think clearly or employ logic well.
First of all, as I pointed out above, you may make assumptions about my poltics all you like, but they have no bearing on any claim I’ve made. Thus, to attempt to link me to a group that is in your mind discredited, for the purpose of strengthening the appearance of your position, is an ad hominem attack (how ironic) that invokes appeal to ridicule and attempts to poison the well.
If you’d like, I’m happy to go into more specific detail about how I arrived at these conclusions.
Tom (f35e9a) — 3/22/2006 @ 7:29 amTom, excellent links on topic. It would be wonderful if we would all review them from time to time as we make these arguments. Perhaps holding each other accountable for making logically consistent arguments would even raise the level of civil discourse. I certainly find that I learn a great deal more when confronted with non-emotional, well thought arguments, as opposed to being labeled.
Subsets of these arguments, I supposed, would include assumptions like “republicans tend to be racists”, “conservatives only care about money, not the ‘little guy'”, “conservatives don’t care about the environment”, “liberals care about everything because they’re more enlightened intellectually and morally superior”, “Bush is stupid”, “you don’t support affirmative action so you’re a racist”, “why would any black person be a conservative?” (there are many breaches of logical thought in that one). And of course, my favorite, the post hoc ergo propter hoc: If the economy is either good or bad it has been made thus by the occupant of the white house.
I particularly liked your comment #2. I have been having this very discussion on the Cheney thread regarding whether one’s personal religious beliefs have anything whatsoever to do with a completely unrelated argument regarding the causes of the damage done to the WTC and Pentagon on 9/11. The corollary being that if you hold a particular belief, defined to be illogical, that all of your arguments are illogical.
Sometimes we simply arrive at differing opinions of what the facts mean and perhaps even what we can logically infer from them. When we get to that point, my opinion is that we ought to simply agree to disagree, even strongly, and move on.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 3/22/2006 @ 8:29 amAnd I didn’t even mention the relativist fallacy: “you have your logic (truth) and I have mine”.
Really do love that one. It usually occurs directly after an argument has been shown to be logically and factually fallacious. The next assertion of late has been “Bush is a liar”.
But of course if we all have our own truth, no one CAN be a liar.
blu, I do hope you take time to read Tom’s comments and follow the links. Very helpful.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 3/22/2006 @ 8:36 amHarry Arthur: I certainly find that I learn a great deal more when confronted with non-emotional, well thought arguments, as opposed to being labeled.
Yep.
The corollary being that if you hold a particular belief, defined to be illogical, that all of your arguments are illogical.
Right. It’s really tempting to want to hang the “you’re being inconsistent!” albatross on our enemies instead of embracing the fact that we all draw our respective lines here or there and come to different conclusions on different subjects based on how we gerrymander those lines. The religious example is simple. There’s a reason we call it “faith” instead of “proof.” (It is by that same token that I believe that matters of “faith” should not be invoked where matters of “science” belong instead. Not what you were doing over yonder, but rather what I see the ‘intelligent design’ers trying to accomplish. But that’s a whole ‘nother argument for another time.)
Thanks for your insight, H. Arthur.
Tom (fefa50) — 3/22/2006 @ 11:19 amP.S. I see no particular value in being as anal as I just was with regards to each other’s posts around here. As bloggers, most of us reserve (or ought to reserve) the right to engage in hyperbole and limited use of fallacies across the gambit just to make a point sound good (see the title of this thread for example) (To Quoque again). But I agree that we must be ultimately accountable to the statements we’re making, and be able to defend them with logic. And frankly, Bilwick, if you’re still listening, I’ve found liberals and conservatives who are both great and lousy at doing just that. So kindly put the broad brushes away. 🙂
Tom (fefa50) — 3/22/2006 @ 11:25 amAs an aside, there is a dead man (died 1955) who tried otherwise & his main works were published post humously after he died, by his mother.
Yi-Ling (129a84) — 3/22/2006 @ 1:06 pmhttp://www.godweb.org/chardin.htm >>
#15 Tom, very fair comments and excellent balance.
#14 There are clearly discussions in which it is appropriate to make “faith” arguments. My personal guideline, however, is that I never appeal to a “faith” argument unless that is the topic at hand. For most topics here, even those with an arguably “moral” component, e.g. abortion, death penalty, war, etc, I intentionally limit my reasoning to logic and fact, even given that I may have a strongly held “faith” viewpoint. It seems to me that this is only appropriate in a forum where the same “faith” background is not shared by all.
Of course, even in the realm of science, I would suggest that we occasionally end up making “faith” arguments while mistakenly calling them “science”. This seems to me to be an inclination the more theoretical the science, the more removed in time or space that we find ourselves from the events being discussed, or the more dogmatic the argument. But you are correct, “that’s a whole ‘nother argument for another time.”
Harry Arthur (b318a5) — 3/22/2006 @ 11:28 pmOkay, Harry. You are telling me logic is completely removed from your faith. Why do you go to church? To take in nonsense? Logic is not a factor? I thought eternity was a logical consideration in all of the whole business of religion. Okay. I guess that is more of your logic.
You are the one that started this topic, assuming my inability to use logic. I think it began with the 9-11 discussion, when with each of your points in the argument, I continued to counter you with another. Your final assumption be my having “no logic”. Not that either of us “won” per se’.
Incidentally, did you hear what happened to even be on the mainstream news? That the FBI agent that arrested Moussaoui said that the administration was “criminally negligent” he stated, of ignoring 70 of his and others warnings of 911. Same story with Richard Clark, the terrorism czar, tearing his hair out, being completely ignored. Add that to the other 40 pieces of evidence that David Ray Griffin and others have presented, kind of seems like Bush and gang thought it might be a good way to have the population compliant with them in whatever they wanted to do, from there on out. Wow! Unitary power! Infinite power of the whole damned planet with the majority of the US budget going to the military industrial complex, and then being the ones that profit off that war too. Seems unfathomable.
blubonnet (86405d) — 3/24/2006 @ 10:54 pmBlu-
One can’t possibly set up the same logical premises for everything she believes. You don’t. I don’t. Harry Arthur doesn’t. Why do you insist that he combine his ideas about his faith with arguments he makes about anything else? That’s impossible–and absurd.
I haven’t been reading your discussion with Harry Arthur, but it seems to me that to attack his supposed “inconsistency” in this area is to bark up the wrong tree. It also belies your prejudices against people of faith, which would seem to have nothing to do with the questions of your original discussion.
I know, I know: he said you’re bad at using logic. May I suggest that you not set up false dichotomies that help prove that claim.
Tom
P.S. I’m sure we agree politically on just about everything. That’s not what this is about. But your attempted mockery of religion is off-putting to one like me who believes in religious freedom.
Tom (764816) — 3/26/2006 @ 2:21 pmTom, appropriate comments. You and I might very well be at the opposite ends of the political spectrum. I honestly don’t know, and quite frankly it’s not important to me. Nor does our particular “faith” construct really have any impact on our arguments either, unless of course, that itself is the subject of the particular discussion.
I’m more than happy to agree to disagree on anyone’s interpretation of the facts. I’m also more than happy to disagree on the basic “facts” themselves when they’re not clear. I don’t particularly find labels all that compelling or useful in any case. And as for political labels, I’ve often noticed that most of us are really more complex in our political beliefs than simply “liberal”, “conservative”, “libertarian” or whatever labels might suggest, so I try to avoid those as much as possible also (I do slip occasionally).
blu, You are telling me logic is completely removed from your faith. Why do you go to church? To take in nonsense? Logic is not a factor? I thought eternity was a logical consideration in all of the whole business of religion. Okay. I guess that is more of your logic.
Unfortunately you are arguing a point I’ve never made. I have emphatically NEVER made the point that “logic is completely removed from my faith.” Were I to make a “faith-based” argument, in fact, I would strongly assert the opposite.
The argument I made to you was that my “faith” and indeed all my beliefs are TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to the quality of my arguments on any topic. You have brought it up on a number of occasions, yet I have NEVER cited my faith as a rationale for any of my assertions regarding the citations you’ve provided regarding the events of 9/11, or any of several assertions regarding the current state of affairs of our country.
I haven’t even brought my faith into other discussions, e.g., abortion or euthanasia, where there is a distinctly moral component, except to provide a personal context for my world view to other participants. I admittedly did answer a number of questions you posed in a previous thread regarding my beliefs, solely out of courtesy. My impression from several of your comments is that because I have indicated that I am an “evangelical Christian” that you have a particular stereotype of me. I can assure you that you are almost completely assured of being wrong. I’m a bit more complicated than you might guess … as are most people.
I am simply of the belief that unless we are arguing about Biblical texts, for me to cite the Bible in support of even a moral point is inappropriate. Not because I don’t believe the Bible, because I do, completely and totally, but because it is not a universally accepted authority source in our secular culture. Therefore, I choose to argue secular topics from a secular basis.
On each of these and other subjects I’ve simply chosen to disagree with your arguments and your citations. To the best of my knowledge I’ve not made a single ad hominem argument, though I have admittedly indicated that I thought some of what you’ve SAID or ASSERTED was “nonsense” and “horse hockey”, hardly what I would consider a personal attack, rather a judgement of the QUALITY of your argument(s) or your sources, and virtually always after having made what I consider to be logic- and fact-based counter arguments of my own first.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 3/27/2006 @ 9:45 amI am simply of the belief that unless we are arguing about Biblical texts, for me to cite the Bible in support of even a moral point is inappropriate. Not because I don’t believe the Bible, because I do, completely and totally, but because it is not a universally accepted authority source in our secular culture. Therefore, I choose to argue secular topics from a secular basis.
Hear hear! I’ve lately been influenced by Gary Wills on the New Testament – this seems akin to his views not only personally but theologically. Even if, at the level of the individual, faith is more important than policy (and by its nature it would seem to be), that’s no reason to cease to distinguish between the two.
biwah (f5ca22) — 3/27/2006 @ 9:57 amblu, one additional comment if I may. I am also not a “knee-jerk” Bush supporter as you seem to think. I note that in a previous thread you likened my “faith” in Bush to my faith in Jesus. I can assure you that was not an accurate assesment, and from what I know of Bush’s beliefs he would assert the same. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into a detailed discussion on the subject.
I will defend Bush when I believe your comments to be innacurate, even slanderous as they often seem to be, just as I will severely criticize him when I feel he has gone astray, as I did with the Harriet Myers nomination on this site. I was also very uncomplimentary of his selection of the manager of FEMA, and of the performance of the DHS as a whole, among others. Finally, I’ve also been very critical of his propensity to spend money and of his lack of propensity to stop the republican congress from wasting money on “pork”.
Perhaps your apparent stereotype of this particular “conservative” is in need of some rethinking.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 3/27/2006 @ 10:02 ambiwah, good point. I also believe my thought process on this is theologically sound, especially given Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in the book of Acts.
In my opinion, the concept is that you meet people intellectually where they are. I also have no desire to “stuff the Bible down anyone’s throat” even if I could. Our country is not a theocracy, nor would I wish it to become one.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 3/27/2006 @ 10:13 amInfinite power of the whole damned planet with the majority of the US budget going to the military industrial complex, and then being the ones that profit off that war too. Seems unfathomable.
2007 proposed Federal budget:
$2.77 trillion Total Federal budget;
$870.7 billion Total Discretionary budget items;
$489.3 billion base DoD (includes $50 billion GWOT budget) 17.7% of Total Federal budget & 56.2% of Total Discretionary budget
Infinite power?
The majority of the budget going to the military industrial complex?
By far the majority of the budget goes to the non-Discretionary items, including Social Security and Medicare. Medicare is essentially in crisis now because the program costs far more than was ever envisioned when it was enacted and is already relying partially on general funds for solvency.
Social Security will begin to be in crisis in about 8 to 10 years when the program no longer runs surpluses to mask the actual size of the federal deficit and the SSA begins to cash in the government bonds that will fund my retirement benefits. The bonds are expected to be expended sometime in mid-century at which time the program will rely solely on “pay-go” contributions and the general fund to pay benefits.
Both programs will become major drains on the general fund. General fund taxes will have to be raised, SSA taxes will have to be raised, and SS retirement benefits will have to be cut. One can only guess the effect on the economy. Definitely unfathomable.
Harry Arthur (b318a5) — 3/28/2006 @ 6:54 pm