Steven Den Beste has a detailed post in which he examines all manner of contemporary political rhetoric built upon tu quoque — a fallacy of argument so common these days that it’s become a sort of conditioned preamble to the bulk of Democratic partisan discourse, it seems. Notes Den Beste:
[…] here at home, I see another place where the truth needs to be told. The putative Democratic candidate for President is Senator John Kerry, and you may have heard mention that he served in Viet Nam and earned some medals doing so.
Indeed, if you’ve read almost any coverage of Kerry’s campaign, you’d be hard pressed to avoid hearing mention of his service in Viet Nam. Given the near absence of any other clear and unambiguous statements of Kerry’s positions on major issues, one could be forgiven for thinking that the Kerry platform is that we should vote for Kerry because he served in Viet Nam.
Why is there such emphasis on this? Somehow it seems no one has come to the conclusion about that which I’ve reached.
Tu Quoque is a really good defense against unpleasant and unanswerable questions, and the combination of trumpeting of Kerry’s service and tempest-in-a-teapot attention paid to Bush’s contemporary service in the Texas National Guard contains an element of Tu Quoque.
But if you want to avoid facing unanswerable questions, an even better way is to make the mere act of asking such questions condemnable. Then when someone asks such questions, you go on the attack and claim that your opponent isn’t even entitled to ask such questions, or that he isn’t capable of understanding the situation enough to ask such a question, or that he should be ashamed of himself for having done so. That means you don’t actually have to address the question itself.
Indeed. In fact, here’s what I wrote a little over a month ago, when I had occasion to break out the latin myself (after the Kerry campaign unleashed its operatives on a pliant media in a pathetic effort to spin the Senator’s infamous “evil Republicans” microphone gaffe):
[…] former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, speaking on FOXNews just moments ago, insisted with a straight face that Kerry’s remarks were “truthful” (his words) — and offered as “proof” of their veracity some vague indictment of unnamed Republican “operatives” who ran dirty campaign ads against John McCain four years ago. Which is a lot like me calling Democrats racists and homophobes, then justifying the charge by noting that Terry McCauliffe no longer subscribes to Ebony or listens to Indigo Girls CDs.
Soulless, disingenuous flacks, these people are. They should be ashamed of themselves.
I said it before, but it bears repeating: Tu quoque. Pre-emptive blame. That’s what’s going on here, and it’s unsavory. But so it goes.
A few days earlier, I’d made a similar comment, thist time when a mini-scandal over White House overnight guests broke out — a non-story that nevertheless prompted some Democrats to argue that Republicans could henceforth never again accuse Bill Clinton of cheapening his office by auctioning off stays in the Lincoln bedroom:
Sadly, splashing truth over this phantom fire won’t keep the BeatBush
10 Replies to “Et tu, tu quoque?”
Yea like John Ashcroft didn’t just try this against Jamie Gorelick. God, do you wingnuts ever hear yourselves speak? It might help you to shut up if you did.
You’re like a gift from God.
I have to admit, people like Scorpio fascinate me. Are they serious or is this performance art?
didn’t exist, invent him. The pocket Voltaire.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him read the post. Thanks for the laugh, Scorpio.
personally, I prefer “he hit me back” to tu quoque.
Scorpio…wasn’t…being….ironic? Hoo boy.
Er, pardon the duh moment, but would an example of this be asking a Christian guy to defend the abortion-doctor–killers in an attempt to invalidate said Christian guy’s attempt to prove that the mullahs of Iran are murderous and mad?
Pretty much, yeah. You can’t hold this opinion, the charge goes, because in a different context you hold a different (but similar-sounding) opinion. Alan Colmes does this all the time. Alan Colmes 101, in fact.
In average people speak I think he is saying that Kerry is full of shit. Bases his entire campaign on service records in hopes America will follow and argue about that instead of any serious issues.
While I tend to agree with what he said. I think he has a biased slant by ignoring the fact that Bush is full of shit and he and his party play the exact same game.
Sometimes I wish they would just write clearly instead of worrying about that Pulitzer.