…is to find the historical proof, via Google / Lexis Nexus searches (or what have you), that this newly-minted meme—that the President is using arguments that “no one” of importance has actually ever made (“Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches,” by the AP’s Jennifer Loven)—is a complete and utter airbrushing of recent history, not to mention a glaring example of media projection (just about every argument the media has made against the NSA has been a straw man argument, given that the particulars of the program remain classified) and overstatement (the formulation “some say” is fairly common shorthand in political speeches, which makes it unnecessary for the speaker to provide a litany of specific names at the expense of the general point).
But back to your assignment. First, here’s Loven, whose accusations of “straw man arguments” I’ve enumerated for your convenience (though she takes care to move the goal posts preemptively by requiring you to find a large contingent of”mainstream” advocates of such arguments—which, of course, requires more than the President’s mention of “some”):
[1] “Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day,” President Bush said recently.
Another time he said, [2] “Some say that if you’re Muslim you can’t be free.”
[3] “There are some really decent people,” the president said earlier this year, “who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care … for all people.”
Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.
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.
[Cough*Bush Lied*cough]
Bush routinely is criticized for dressing up events with a too-rosy glow. But experts in political speech say the straw man device, in which the president makes himself appear entirely reasonable by contrast to supposed “critics,” is just as problematic.
Because the “some” often go unnamed, Bush can argue that his statements are true in an era of blogs and talk radio. Even so, “‘some’ suggests a number much larger than is actually out there,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
[My emphases]
Uh, no, not really, Ms. Hall Jamieson. To wit:
“some” – adj
1. Being an unspecified number or quantity: Some people came into the room. Would you like some sugar?
2. Being a portion or an unspecified number or quantity of a whole or group: He likes some modern scupture but not all.
3. Being a considerable number or quantity: She has been directing films for some years now. [Doesn’t really apply here]
4. Unknown or unspecified by name: Some man called.
pron.
1. An indefinite or unspecified number or portion: We took some of the books to the auction. See Usage Note at every.
2. An indefinite additional quantity: did the assigned work and then some.
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.
[4] “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.”
[5] Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters.
Not long after taking office in 2001, Bush pushed for a new education testing law and began [6] portraying skeptics as opposed to holding schools accountable.
[6a] The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the proposal.
Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections, the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new Homeland Security Department against Democrats.
He told at least two audiences that [7] some senators opposing him were “not interested in the security of the American people.” [8*] In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections [*why does this opposition not count; “some” Dems were willing toppose the DHLS until they got concessions that those guarding security as airports, say, could not be summarily dismissed. This they couches as “usual civil service protections”—which is odd, in that we were dealing, in light of 911, with quite unusual circumstances. Making it more difficult to fire security personnel who were a concern is placing unionization over security. At least, the argument can be legitimately floated.
For the record, I believe Bush overstated this one. But whether or not it is a straw man argument or not is debatable.]
Running for re-election against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Bush frequently used some version of this line [ed’s interjection: “some” version, Ms. Loven? FOR SHAME!] to paint his Democratic opponent as weaker in the fight against terrorism: [9] “My opponent and others believe this matter is a matter of intelligence and law enforcement.”
The assertion was [10] called a mischaracterization of Kerry’s views even by a Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Note the appeal to authority, here. If a “maverick Republican” like John McCain—along with Chuck Hagel one of the two big go-to Republicans for the liberal press—says it’s so, well, it’s so. Q.E.D.
But I digress.
Straw men have made more frequent appearances in recent months, often on national security  once Bush’s strong suit with the public but at the center of some of his difficulties today. [11] Under fire for a domestic eavesdropping program, [12] a ports-management deal and [13] the rising violence in Iraq, Bush now sees his approval ratings hovering around the lowest of his presidency.
Said Jamieson, “You would expect people to do that as they feel more threatened.”
Last fall, the rhetorical tool became popular with Bush when the debate heated up over when troops would return from Iraq. [14] “Some say perhaps we ought to just pull out of Iraq,” he told GOP supporters in October, echoing similar lines from other speeches. “That is foolhardy policy.”
[15] Yet even the speediest plan, as advocated by only a few Democrats, suggested not an immediate drawdown, but one over six months. Most Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable.
Recently defending his decision to allow the National Security Agency to monitor without subpoenas the international communications of Americans suspected of terrorist ties, Bush has suggested that those who question the program underestimate the terrorist threat.
[16] “There’s some in America who say, ‘Well, this can’t be true there are still people willing to attack,’” Bush said during a January visit to the NSA.
The president has relied on straw men, too, on the topics of taxes and trade, issues he hopes will work against Democrats in this fall’s congressional elections.
Usually without targeting Democrats specifically, [17] Bush has suggested they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose extending some of his earlier tax cuts, and [18] protectionists who do not want to open global markets to American goods, when most oppose free-trade deals that lack protections for labor and the environment.
[19] “Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world,” he said this month in India, talking about the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. “I strongly disagree.”
Now. Go forth and find the examples that give lie to Ms Loven’s assertion that these Bush arguments are disingenuous straw man arguments. Leave them, along with their corresponding number, in the comments.
Because from my perspective, this entire “news” story is itself a giant straw man argument, relying as it does on a purposeful, misleading, and incorrect characterization of the use of “some”—and on an important decision to overdetermine the typical non-specificity of political stump speeches to suggest a nefarious rhetorical purpose where none exists, and to extrapolate from that dubious assertion the thinly-veiled conclusion that the President is increasingly relying on such techniques because he feels weak and threatened.
(thanks to Mike at Cold Fury—who points to additional instances of bias here, here, and—for more on Loven’s “reporting”—here.)
Irritate a liberal my sending them this article which shows that some very large countries are still pro-US, and that the liberal whining about ‘America is now hated in the world’ is just wishful thinking on their part.
Self-referentialism becomes a positive feedback loop becomes a circle jerk. Big Media manages the flow of information, as well as the manner in which it is disseminated, and then prentends that its various propaganda organs are absolutely clean of any responsibility for what the average citizen believes.
The trend has lately been to report the daily winner of the Bush’s-Numbers-Have-Never-Been-This-Low-Before contest. It is all masturbatory nonsense.
I don’t want to watch Big Media’s loop machines anymore, but the chicks are too damned hot. And, besides, where else can I so easily entertain myself with footage of riots in the City of Lights? Just turn the sound off. Unless it’s MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer explaining that it was the concessions the French government made to the protesters in the streets of Paris in 1968 that has led to this current batch of protesters reprising their parents’ vandalism.
Newspapers are dying. Television news is porno. The public knows shit. I am on anti-biotics.
It’s already done. What AP tripe.
Newspapers do not report – they compile. The KC Star does basically no national reporting, all of their national news is compiled from news services. The only reporting done is on the local beat and it is for the most part, poorly done. If it wasn’t for the crossword I’d probably shitcan it.
Jeff,
Modifiers (some, most, several, etc) have been used by politicians forever simply because politicians do not like to mention names. They don’t want to put their political opponent’s names in print. Fuck, it’s been done forever. I don’t have the time to google all of that shit, but I can guarantee you that on item 15 that Dean and Murtha both said pull out now. I also remember the vote for immediate withdrawal did get some (qualifier?) votes.
rls:
Newspapers do not report – they compile. The KC Star does basically no national reporting, all of their national news is compiled from news services.
Yep. Which means that fewer and fewer people inside Big Media decide what is news. The casual newspaper reader (i.e., a non-news junkie) is going to have as much knowledge and appreciation of the day’s events as the goddamned Associated Press is going to give them.
I have no problem with biased news reporting so long as its purveyors are upfront about it, but this shit the AP churns out violates all of the most basic rules of newswriting that I can recollect from my high school English and journalism classes.
Congressman Murtha. Next?
Would that be some experts or all experts?
WAPO
oh shoot… my tags fussed on me previous post.
apologies.
Of course, the article begs the question of who is in the mainstream political debate?
while that begs the joke that democrats aren’t in the debate at all, are we counting only national politicians, or do we also count state/local politicians, pundits, and columnists? What about international leaders?
also- for those looking for [2] references, I take the line “they [muslims] don’t want to be free” to be the same line, Bush’s version just exposes the logical falicy that such a statement is.
Hmmmm, not exactly an avalanche of refutations here. They must not want to *overwhelm the server*. Yeah, that’s it.
Your hairsplitting over what the meaning of “some” is is entertaining. Obviously he means something like “a significant enough number of important people to be worthy of a response” or even “the major critics of my policy”. Why would he even address it if he meant simply “an unspecified number or quantity” as you suggest?
It’s fucking Saturday. I’m only online because I’m in between things I have to do.
Yeah, kinda like hairsplitting over what the meaning of “is” is.
My hairsplitting? I simply quoted the definition of “some” to show that it does not, pace THE QUOTED EXPERT’S ASSERTION, mean ”a number much larger than is actually out there” (which is what is necessary to make it a straw man argument, at least in part). In fact, I could find that usage nowhere.
Now, rhetorically, it could of course be used that way—and I think the article itself is an example of such: the implication being that if Bush uses straw man arguments in the instances mentioned, he is increasingly basing his entire set of assertions and arguments on such a fallacy of argument (ie., he is engaging is such despicable rhetorical conduct more often than is actually mentioned in the article). But be that as it may.
The point is, when you have concrete examples of people, you know, actually arguing these things—and those people happen to be representatives of the Democratic party, in many cases—it is actually quite chivalrous to go with the modifier “some” rather than, say, “the DNC Party Leader, Howard Dean, believes we have lost the war, and the House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, has called for the immediate pullout of troops from Iraq.”
You, Todd, are not bringing a very nice tone to any of the debates here. Were I you, I’d concentrate a bit more on putting together a solid argument and lessdimestore snark, or else you’ll find yourself posting elsewhere.
As it is, I generally just skip your comments anyway. Won’t take much for me to decide I just don’t want you clogging up my bandwidth with your bullshit.
tb:
I guess it’s your first visit to this site, for you’ve completely missed Jeff’s dry sense of humor.
And for that matter, we only take marching orders from KKKarl Rove, Jeff’s exertions aside.
The AP article is pure politics–just another example of the fake news spouted by legacy media. No regular reader of this site will spend any time “googling” for refutation, as you, yourself admit, the straw man in the AP argument is “an unspecified number.”
Go watch some basketball.
So what do you think the President meant by it? Why would he address a hypothetical position held by an indeterminate quantity of nobodies? He was characterizing the arguments of his major opponents. Regardless of what the dictionary says he meant.
But the arguments that Bush ascribes to “some” are not actually held by people like Dean, Pelosi, or any other leading Democrat that I know of. That’s the whole point. That’s what makes them straw men.
I’m doing my best. I thought I restrained myself pretty admirably considering the kind of personal attacks that were thrown at me for daring to express an opposing view.
That’s your call. Amongst the sparring, I made a legitimate point. Do you want debate on your site or not?
Yea, Jeff is witty, funny, smart and all that other cool jazz, but there’s just no way I’m going to stop dialing that special KKKarl number every morning to listen to the audio instructions on what to say and think for the next 24 hours.
It’s not politics, it’s an objective assessment of the President’s rhetoric. It would be easy to prove wrong if you could find a major Democrat who holds the views that he claims they do.
I didn’t realize the prospect of actually googling for evidence was such a ludicrous idea around here. I guess I still have a lot to learn about Republicans.
[15] Yet even the speediest plan, as advocated by only a few Democrats, suggested not an immediate drawdown, but one over six months. Most Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable.
The first sentence tries to argue that 6 months is not “immediate”. Besides the fact that you could argue that any length of time longer than instantaneous is not “immediate”, there’s also the problem that the people who put forth the plan described the time frame as “immediate”. From John Murtha’s original press release:
The guy who made the proposal described it as “immediate”. Saying that was a Bush invention is a lie.
As for the second sentence: “Most Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable.”, it is a false dichotomy. In common usage “some” means “some”, not “most”. In fact the word “some” implies a portion that is less than a majority.
TB, the argument is self-refuting anyway, seeing as it is itself a straw-man argument.
College basketball is for Whitey, so I’ll waste a few minutes reiterating this for the ‘tard brigade:
No matter how many specific instances we could find of the arguments Bush speaks against being usedâ€â€an “assignment” that’s laughable in its easiness; hence the sarcastic secret-agent toneâ€â€each one of them would be dismissed as irrelevant or question-begging on the basis of “hardly anyone,” “mainstream,” minute differences in phrasing from Bush’s shorthand summaries, etc.
So no matter how many examples we found, even if it were an infinite number, each one individually wouldn’t count. (There’s a classic parable about this, but I’m drawing a blank.)
The article is straight bullshit rolled in so many weaseling qualifications that it can’t be argued against. It’s pure partisan “red meat.” Loven doesn’t argue. She asserts, and she rhetorically armors her every weird, ridiculous assertion against dissent. The intended audience, the Kos-hacks awaiting their weekend meme-assignments, are banging their heads against the back of the chum-boat predictably.
“Debate” is impossible. All we can do is point and laugh.
If I read Jeff’s cloud of words correctly, he was asking for examples of libruls making the arguments that Bush claimed they were making. It would be easy to provide examples of what some Conservatives said that some libruls said, but that just proves The Post’s point.
Straw man argument #1 doesn’t really count, since we all know it will be the official Republican position by October, but thanks to Darleen for reinforcing The Post’s point that no one is calling for not spending one more dime in Iraq.
As far as the rest of them, good luck. I thought Libruls hated all religions except Islam, so #2 sound more like a green football than a librul.
#3 I guarantee that nobody but Bush called for anybody to be the decider of health care.
#4 Huh? How can you disprove such a vague comment? Oh, that’s the Post’s point.
I think #5 & #6 & #6aare referring to the same argument that “some” people don’t want to hold schools accountable. Remember, Ann Coulter saying that’s what Liburls say isn’t the same as Libruls actually saying it…
#7 Jeff just slipped this one in there. Everyone knows Bush fought against DHS until he flip-flopped on it and made his bizarre straw man argument that even pissed off a few slavish Republicans.
Etc., Etc. I’m with Robert: I have better things to do.
No, it isn’t. The writer presented Bush’s arguments exactly as he made them. Do you even know what a straw man *is*?
[3] “There are some really decent people,†the president said earlier this year, “who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care … for all people.â€Â
Pelosi adopted the Progressive Caucus Position Paper:
The Progressive Caucus is united in its goal of making health care a right, not a privilege. Every person should have access to affordable, comprehensive and high-quality medical care.
Here’s a statement by Howard Dean:
The federal government will be “deciding” what healthcare people get when it decides what it will and will not pay for.
[17] Bush has suggested they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose extending some of his earlier tax cuts…
That’s just amazing. If earlier tax cuts are not extended, that means the taxes will go up. Hey, if you want to try and paint the Democratic Party as the party of smaller government, go ahead, it just seems a little silly to me.
That’s enough for me for one day.
So when your boss cuts your pay to minimum wage, but after 6 months goes back to paying you your original wage, would you he gave you a raise?
Sorry- would you say he gave you a raise?
tb
It might be nice if you were acquainted with the difference between wages and taxes.
Gotta love analogies!
If your boss fired your ass, and you found a new job that paid more money, would you say your boss got you a raise?
I might not feel happy about it, but yes, that is a raise.
But I don’t think that’s a very good analogy. It works from the point of view of the government, because it’s the government’s pay that was cut. But I tend to think in terms of the taxpayer when it comes to whether or not taxes are being raised. A more accurate analogy would be to say that if you had been working at minimum wage, then got a raise, then 6 months later was put back at minimum wage, would you call that a pay cut?
Lets face it–these people are hardly in the mainstream and their opinions do not deserve to be analyzed or debated.
I dunno APF…Rep. “IMMEDIATE out of Iraq” Murtha has publically told Americans to not to join the military, so I suppose the protestors carrying “military recruiters OUT” signs are as mainstream as he is.
“Stop war on Iran”…oh that’s a real winner! Don’t those vagina sign carriers realize that Iranian mullahs would love to stretch their infidel necks for the crime of mixing, unchaperoned and un-burka’d, with penis sign carriers?
APF,
Since humans no longer have predators to prey on them in the wild, nature needs another mechanism to weed out genetic waste matter from the gene pool.
Thus, nature programs about 10% of the human species to act in a manner that hastens their own removal from the gene pool. They effectively act as vehicles for the disposal of genetic waste matter from the Darwinian evolutionary process.
Thus we see anti-war people, opposing things that might save their own lives. This is also seen in those who conduct suicide bombing, gay marriage, partial birth abortion, gentical mutilation, etc. All have the common pattern of individuals seeking to weed themselves out of the gene pool.
This also explains why leftists are so much uglier than the average person (further discouraging reproduction), and why radical Islam requires women to wear Burkhas (a rule no straight man would ever make).
“Some” politicians try to avoid using names because they will have to work with these people in the future and don’t want to single them out.
Sometimes, you just can’t be specific about attributing a position because there are a whole of people who hold that position.
Presidents are particularly hesitant to call someone out by name, because as president, they can be construed as speaking for the United States of America.
Um, I know that wages and taxes are not the same thing. I was making what is referred to as an “analogy” to illustrate the point that when something (TAXES, in this case) is lowered temporarily and then restored to its original state, it’s not commonly considered an increase.
Having to prove the obvious is very, very tiring. Especially over and over again.
What really strikes me as bizarre is how many people have entirely opposite obviouses. I don’t know if I’ll ever figure that out.
As to strawmen, I don’t know if there’s any fallacy more often used and misaccused.
And tb needs to learn the difference between a point and a gotcha. It’s subtle, but it’s very important here.
Perhaps someone should inform Mizz Loven of the difference between reportage and commentary; between, respectively, engaging in rhetoric and in relating facts–exactly that for which she admonishes Bush.
Too ironic to be just irony. But then I think she knows; after all, she’s been making her living for some time by doing precisely that: http://tinyurl.com/ne7tf
That works too, but I guess what we’re missing in the equation is that the tax cuts were written to be temporary. Special action has to be taken to extend them. So, it’s more like if your boss told you up front that your wage increase was only going to be for 6 months, would you consider it a pay cut if he didn’t change his mind and keep paying you the higher wage forever?
Yes I would consider it a pay cut. An expected pay cut, but I will be making less money.
The problem is that the difference between wages and taxes makes your analogy poor, and your snottiness misplaced.
If you’re driving at 30 mph and stop at a red light, then go forward until you hit 30, are you accelerating?
You seem to be assuming for some reason that the tax rate before the Bush cuts is the most perfect and proper tax rate ever. How about we make the “original state” 1989, when the marginal tax rate was much lower?
I really don’t see what’s so hard to understand. You repeal/fail to extend tax cuts, taxes increase.
If I weighed 150 in High School and I’ve gone from 200 to 160 in the past week, am I losing weight? Apparently not!
What you’re “missing” is that taxes are not government earnings–they are the earnings of *productive individuals*, i.e., working private citizens.
Preventing government from stealing more money from those who earned it–or forcing it to return what it has previously stolen–is not a “cost” to government.
Government produces *nothing*–and therefore owns nothing & also therefore has no costs(nor rights)–not even the guns it sticks in everyone’s back to enforce its taxation. Productive citizens pay for the guns–and everything else.
Let’s keep that *fact* chrystal clear.
What snottiness? We’re having a discussion. If you think my argument’s no good, you need to show me why. Just saying it sucks isn’t good enough.
No good. There is more to the equation than just accelerating/decelerating-paying more/paying less.
I’m not assuming anything of the kind. The rate before the cuts is the default that is restored when the law expires, that’s all. There’s nothing arbitrary about it.
It’s not a repeal when the cut expires on it’s own.
So, let me see… if the price of gas drops from $3.20 per gallon to $2.20 for six months, and then goes back up to $3.20, that’s not an increase in the price of gas… is that your position, tb?
Jesus. Do you people just *not know* what an analogy is?
In America, the government has the legal right to tax you. It’s not stealing.
I don’t know what you’re getting at. How does this relate to my argument? If you’re saying that the government doesn’t have the right to tax and therefore this is all moot, then we have a fundamental disagreement.
Emphasis noted.
Wrong. ONCE AGIN: It’s not simply a matter of paying more or paying less. What your fellows are calling a tax “increase” is really the default that is automatically reverted to when the current cut expires (as it was intended to when it was written).
Oh, wait, wait, wait… I see what it is. If you vote for a six-month tax cut, you get to go home and tell your constituents that you voted to lower their taxes. If someone else points out that you later refused to extend that tax cut beyond its paltry six month period, then he’s not playing fair.
It’s a little like having your boss come around and tell you, “Hey, Bob, great news! I got you a pay raise! Right now, it’s only on the books for six months. We’ll see how things are then before we decide whether to extend it.”
After six months, Bob comes to his boss and asks why his pay was cut back to the old amount. The boss says, “I didn’t cut your pay, Bob. I told you the raise was only for six months.”
“You could have extended it, couldn’t you?”
“The raise expired.”
“But you had the option to keep it going, right?”
“The expiration was always part of the deal.”
“You’ve cut my pay.”
“No, no, Bob. It was a temporary pay raise.”
“But you told me you might keep it going, and you chose not to.”
“Bob, I can see your upset. I have a meeting right now, so why don’t we talk about this another time. I’m going to be out of town for a week or two, but talk to my secretary. She’ll try to work you in. You’re doing great work, Bob. We all appreciate it. See ya!”
As Steve pointed out, the difference would be that the tax money belongs to us, and is being taken at gunpoint. The analogy does serve to illustrate the weasly nature of those who voted for the tax cuts before they voted against extending them, though.
TW: Maybe.
Wrong. ONCE AGIN: It’s not simply a matter of paying more or paying less. What your fellows are calling a tax “increase†is really the default that is automatically reverted to when the current cut expires (as it was intended to when it was written).
What you’re missing is that we don’t care how the tax cut was written. Those who refuse to make it permanent, are people who want to keep taxes high. If they were willing to spend less, then the tax increase (reversion, whatever) would not be needed.
Now, if you think Bush ought to get painted with that brush, since he hasn’t exactly been a model of fiscal responsibility, we can throw some paint on him too. What we can’t do is get the paint off of your guys. Democrats love to tax and spend.
Keeping taxes low, puts pressure on the government to restrain spending. That’s why we want them low, and it’s why Democrats don’t.
How can Loven counter a straw-man argument by embedding what is essentially a straw-man argument into the defense? The so-called protections for labor and environment are straw met thrown into the free trade discussions to derail the idea of free trade. If Kyoto, the left’s darling environmental agreement, can ignore protections for the environment in developing countries surely a free trade agreement can. And labor protection arguments against free trade are US union-coddling arguments. Surely no one concerned with the welfare of those in developing countries would argue it is better for them to be without the money the jobs generate.
I’m trying to find links to Kerry’s campaign positions, but it is difficult because they are off his website. In looking at fact check.org, I find his counter-Bush ad re:outsourcing white collar jobs.
Announcer: While jobs are leaving our country in record numbers, George Bush says sending jobs overseas “makes sense†for America. …
John Kerry’s proposed a different economic plan that encourages companies to keep jobs here. It’s part of a “detailed economic agenda†to create 10 million jobs. John Kerry. A new direction for America.
It’s a little difficult to make out from that quote what Kerry proposes, but it is definitely about keeping white collar, call-center type jobs from going to India.
Now, I can tell you that the Indian middle class is greatly benefiting from these types of jobs, so it certainly isn’t a concern for them that motivates Kerry. I can further state that it is these types of employment opportunities that helps India have strongly positive feelings about the US.
But John Kerry didn’t want these types of jobs going overseas. I’m sure Ms. Loven is correct, though, that he wouldn’t want to wall off the US economy. I’m sure the Japanese and Korean automakers opening manufacturing plants in the US would be warmly welcome.
Can I also point out that while Bush was saying these words in India, the “no foreign company should run our (invest in our) ports” debate was raging in the US?
At least, some were saying that.
Yes, yes it is that simple. It is money out of taxpayers’ wallets. Money that could go to food, shelter, anything they want to spend it on. Taxpayers will be paying more of their money. Period. Congress can keep the tax rate the same. They won’t, and the tax rate will increase. It doesn’t matter if they agreed on it beforehand, the money is coming out of their pockets when it doesn’t have to. Rate of change is a positive. There’s really no way to make this clearer.
I could try to make a pseudo-mathematical proof:
Tax rate after cuts sunset > tax rate
Money paid by tax payers later > money paid now
Really, you could try and argue that allowing the tax rate to go back to the previous is fiscally responsible. Because right now you sound absurd. It’s like you’re arguing 2>3. That doesn’t change the fact that taxes will increase. Go up. Picture this: <- rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
Yes, I do. If you imagine that “presenting Bush’s arguments exactly as he made them” prevents Lovey’s argument from being a straw man, you clearly do not.
Here is a good WaPo article from Oct 2004, discussing the migration of jobs overseas and Kerry’s position. It is much more about walling off our economy than about any protection for labor or the environment.
IRAN BLINKS! Jeff, There should be no talk of any withdrwl date. Your military and our Canadian guys in Afghanistan deserve our encouragement.
Did notes from Bush and Koffi carry some weight in having Iranian dissident writer Ganji freed from SIX years of prison?
More than half of Iranian voters are western progressive but they either became apathetic about voting or the elections were fiddled.
The severe ruling clerics are pulling back somewhat by allowing Ganji to go free.
Here is Forbes view.
http://tinyurl.com/p2c89
http://releaseganji.net/
This could lead to some progress and should be encouraging to the military.
Iran would be wise to withdraw Muqtada Al-Sadr and his *Black Headbands* from their kidnapping for ransom habits in Basra and Bhagdhad. HealingIraq.blogspot.com
10words.ca
Sorry, I forgot to <a href= those sites. TG
What I always hate about discussing the government is that things are rigged so that the individual driving the discussion can make whatever point they wish.
This year we are spending $100 on X. Next year we were going to budget $140, but now we are only going to budget $120. So we can say that we have increased spending on X by $20 and cut spending on X by $20 and both statements are true, and the person framing the debate has the advantage of being able to pick and choose which statistic works for him.
In this case, with a lot of statements that are ambiguous when presented as sound bites (as in the article) the administrations opponents want to be able to interpret the presidents words by the definitions which suit them, and yet complain bitterly when we apply even common sense interpretations to their own ambiguous statements.
So they can declare the NSA intelligence gathering as ‘illegal domestic wiretaps’ when that is yet to be determined. I hear constant charactuirzations of neo-cons without a peep of complaint. Kerry can innocently declare that he owns one SUV, and at the same time brag about the multiple SUVs his family owns to the autoworkers unions.
The AP article must be an editor’s error – I expect it was meant to run on April Fool’s Day.
I remember William Safire making a jole about his days as a Nixon speechwriter – staffers would draw straws, and the loser would have to say to the Nixon, “Mr. President, take the easy way”. Then Safire would put in the speech “Some have advised me to take the easy way, but I have rejected that counsel…”.
I would bet that any and every speech from Kerry or Clinton or any major politico is stuffed with straw. Might be worth checking before I reach for my wallet, however.
What an absurd article. To take on just #9, here’s a snippet from a Meet The Press interview with Nuancy Boy:
MR. RUSSERT: But the Republicans, Vice President Cheney included, have pointed out to a comment that you made during a Democratic debate which they think undercuts your support of the war on terrorism. “The war on terror is…occasionally military. … But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.”
SEN. KERRY: Yes.
Of course, Loven would say that Bush left out the “nuance” of “primarily”.
That’s about the size of it. Bob was confused as to the real nature of the arrangement to begin with.
Metaphorically speaking right? No one’s threatening to start pumping bullets into you if you don’t pay your taxes. Anyway US citizenship is strictly voluntary. You don’t have to live here. If you do want to live here, you have certain responsibilities. One of them is paying taxes.
I’m with you on that.
And the Republicans apparently love to borrow-from-the-Chinese and spend.
Apparently it doesn’t. At least when Republicans are in charge. They’ve squandered the Clinton surplus and now we’re back to record deficits with nothing but a heaping helping of jack shit to show for it.
I haven’t had a chance to read through it but here are the Powerline guys nailing Loven and if I am right in scanning, most will find it amusing as it’s titled “President Bush Twists Kerry’s Words on Iraq””
OK, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. It’s purely a matter of semantics. We can argue about the wisdom of cutting taxes when we’re at war and running record deficits.
Explain it to me.
This is sort of off topic, but as I went back to read the Powerline link I left, it all leads back to Joe Wilson. You know if you think about it —the current state of affairs, the censure, animosity, dissent, everything pretty much started with this guys lies.
I am a regular plamiac at Justoneminute, but I am just amazed at the havoc this guy started, Joe Wilson’s lies have more to do with everything than just Scooter Libby.
Bush is using “straw man” arguments? Fascism can’t be far behind.
To take on some of the critics of the article
Brainster, on point 9:
It’s clear that Kerry doesn’t believe that the fight against terror is “a matter of intelligence and law enforcement.†Didn’t Kerry support the war in Afghanistan?
On point 19, no one can seriously say that any Democrat’s solution is to “wall off our economy from the world”.
On point 3, any Democratic health care plan doesn’t force anyone to choose government health care. You still have the choice between public or private health care. If I have choice, then the government isn’t deciding health care for all people.
On point 15, there can be quibbling on what “immediate” is…that’s borderline either way.
Anyways, the commenters haven’t done a good job of fulfilling their “mission”. But I like the numbering system…makes it easy to score how y’all are doing. So far, I figure y’all have scored a half-point on #15. And maaaaybe generous scoring will give you a half-point on #17. So that’s 1 for 19 (.053). Keep it up!
From The Nation: “The Nation therefore takes the following stand: We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still.”
Surely, The Nation and its readers count as “some.”
BWAHAHAHHAHAH…where to begin on that kneeslapper… hmmm… dotcom bust? 9/11?
whatever…any one that thinks it was Clinton’s surplus is not about to be convinced otherwise… and certainly not the “Bush can do no right and we’ll make sure to present every positive as a negative until YOU believe it” MSM…revenue up, unemployment at an all time low… but hell.. these are the WORST economic times in the USofA evah…
feh
Didn’t you just get through arguing that allowing the tax cut extension to expire was NOT a “tax increase?” So how can making the current tax rate permanent be a tax cut?
Jesus Mary & Joseph..!
Would that be something like the current “choice” between public and private schools?
And if you think $17,000 a year tuition is steep, price out out-of-pocket expenses for a week’s stay in the hospital.
Yeah…choice..like the Netherlands where the elderly are getting a little frightened to even go to the hospital incase a doctor should, like, think they are using too many “free” health services and decide to put-em-down.
Of course, just accusing the President of using “strawman” arguments, when his opponents outright lied about what the administration was saying in the lead up to the Iraq War, is typical of the grotesque hypocrisy of Democrats.
Jesus H. Christ, the point man on the withdrawal plan described it as “immediate”, and you think that’s “borderline”?
Right, Bush is only President, with a Republican-dominated congress. What can he do?
It doesn’t sound like 9/11/the dotcom bust hurt our economy that badly. If things are so great there should be no excuse for massive deficit spending.
I don’t know what semantic point you think you’ve scored on here, and I don’t much care. Sorry.
From Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP): “In the case of health care, a single-payer system would be setup such that one entityâ€â€a government run organizationâ€â€would collect all health care fees, and pay out all health care costs.”
The Clinton Health Care Task Force was crawling with supporters of PNHP’s agenda. In line with the PNHP program, the task force would have made it illegal to seek care outside the universal system. Is HILLARY! not mainstream anymore?
TB, posting from Disingenousness R’ Us, says:
Okay, but since I teach this stuff at the college level, I should charge you.
The “straw man” fallacy occurs when one refutes a weaker argument than was actually offered. This is a fun example, because while accusing the President of using a straw man, the author actually constructs a straw man. Observe:
(1) the President says “Some look at the challenges in Iraq…”, ““Some say that if you’re Muslim …”, and ““There are some really decent people … who believe ….”
These are, as you note, apparently correct quotes. (I haven’t confirmed them independently, but I’m willing for the sake of the argument to assume it.)
(2) The author says “Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions” and from this asserts “In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.” From this, she concludes that Bush is making a “straw man” argument.
But observe: the argument for Bush’s statements being “straw men” depends, by definition, on the notion that these positions aren’t held by “some” people. If there are people who hold that position, Bush’s statements are valid; it’s not a straw man to refute a weak argument that has actually been made.
And observe, by saying “hardly anyone” holds these positions, the author implicitly concedes that at least some people do hold that position. In order to make this clearer, it can help to convert to symbolic logic: the statement “some people believe x” can be expressed symbolically as “there exist people who believe x” or “(∃ x) believe(x)”.
“Hardly anyone believes x”, similarly, is an assertion that “everyone believes not-x” except for some few people who do. This, the correct symbolic expression is also “(∃ x) believe(x)”. And, of course, (∃ x) believe(x) ≡ (∃ x) believe(x).
It follows necessarily that the conclusion that Bush’s statements are fallacious is itself incorrect; when stripped of rhetorical flourish, it’s merely two assertions:
(1) Bush said “(∃ x) believe(x)”
(2) “(∃ x) believe(x)”
What makes it fascinating as rhetoric — and also concludes my argument — is that the false conclusion depends on an amphiboly: the syntactic confusion lies in the implicit assumption that “hardly any” is a different assertion than “some”, which as we’ve seen is incorrect. The author’s argument for these statements being straw men rests on the reader misunderstanding “hardly any” as meaning “none”, allowing her to infer that Bush is positing a more easily refuted argument than has actually been made.
Thus she imputes to Bush a more easily refuted position than his actual position (a position with which she, in fact, concurs in her discussion.) It is, thus, a straw man.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Llama School:
Kerry: “But it’s primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world.â€Â
If you’re saying that Kerry doesn’t believe what he says, hey, you might have a point.
Really? It would appear that the The NEA, at least, thinks NCLB is not costly enough:
Nor does NEA think that NCLB is intrusive enough:
In other words, NEA wants the Feds to weigh in on every aspect of a child’s education —the current testing regimen is not enough.
When it comes to “intrusiveness” it would appear that no means yes. Or something.
Hitchens literally destroyed Diane Feinstein and Katrina Vandenheuvel on Larry King Friday night. It was truly amazing to watch. They both said something to the effect of “quagmire, withdrawl immediately.” Hitch dispatced of them with the cold efficiancy of an assassin.
Jeff, why bother trying? Don’t you know that Bush assertions have to be interpreted only in ways that would render them factually refutable, and his words have to be twisted/context ignored when this isn’t possible? And anti-Bush and press statements have to be given the benefit of the doubt, even if this means ignoring their context and even the actual words used? This is the modern mainstream media, and the modern Democratic party.
Thus, the SOTU statement:
“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Is refuted by restating it as the counterfactual:
“Iraq bought significant quatities of uranium yellowcake from Niger.”
And asserting that Bush lied. Strawman? An extreme one. More likely, an outright deception. But par for the course because, hey, Bush lied.
I have no problem with the press having an agenda if (a) they are honest about it, and honest about reporting in context both (b) facts, even when they render their own premises problematic, and (c) characterizatiosn and quotes of positions they oppose. That’s what’s not happening.
Appeal to authority noted.
The use of the word “some” is a rhetorical trick to make the statement unfalsifiable. Obviously he’s referring to the views of his major opponents.
Ah! Condescension!
Didn’t see that coming …
If the President were to name names, of course, the AP story the next day would read:
Following the opening paragraph would be several column-inches of breathless indignation about questioning patriotism, personal attacks, etc.
Somewhere around the 20th paragraph, they would get around to mentioning that those named had actually said what the President attributed to them, and worse.
You Know: perhaps you’re thinking of the ‘No True Scots’ rhetorical trick? Not exactly a parable, but it fits the situation.
<ul>Obviously he’s referring to the views of his major opponents.</ul>
Wouldn’t that include Howard Dean and Jack Murtha? Last I checked, Dean was the DNC Chairman and Murtha is a high ranking Democrat in the House …
Are you saying they’re not “major”?
Mistakenly — my argument doesn’t stand on my authority. (See the “appeal to authority” entry in Wikipedia.)
Oh my God, Bush is using rhetoric. But note: Bush’s statements don’t depend on a rhetorical trick to be true: there do exist people who believe those things. Lovey’s argument depends on the rhetorical tricks (amphiboly of ill-used quantifications), and when considered carefully turns out to be vacuous. That’s the difference between a real argument and a fallacious one.
(By the way, there’s a technical term for an argument that can’t be shown to be false: it’s called “true”. You’ve just asserted that what Bush said actually was true on its face.)
Which, I suppose, is meant to set up the implication that people who say those things aren’t “major” opponents. But the first position to which I refer is held by Rep Murtha, who was on all the Sunday morning shows today, I believe (certainly at least Fox and Meet the Press), and the third is a fair statement about “single payer” schemes, which Hilary Clinton and others have advocated.
If you mean to argue that Murtha and Clinton aren’t major figures, I guess you can make that work, but if HRC isn’t a “major” living Democrat, I wonder who would be?
By the way, TB, I take paypal. I can’t award CEUs, though.
Worth noting what Cori Dauber says, too:
That was beautiful.
Well, we can easily dispense with item [2] from Jeff’s list. It is quite easy to find the “some” who say this:
Just Google ”Zarqawi democracy”:
Here’s a nice summary of what Zarqawi and his Al-Qaeda friends have said about democracy for Muslims. An excerpt from a statement last January:
There is plenty more if you follow the link.
Hence this is another entirely bogus aspect to Loven’s attack. Loven tries to move the goalposts by implying that Bush was attributing this sentiment to American political opponents. In fact, I know plenty of left-wingers who agree 100% that democracy in Iraq is impossible – in fact, they consider it axiomatic. Lefty politicians tend to be more guarded in their utterances, suggesting that democracy in places like Iraq is doomed to failure without actually coming out and saying “Muslims can’t be free”. But Bush did not say “Some in the Democratic Party,” and clearly Zarqawi and friends have said precisely that on numerous occasions.
They do depend on a rhetorical trick. If he referred to specific individuals as holding those views he could have been easily proven wrong because his major opponents don’t hold them. So he had to use “some”. If you’re trying to claim that he was responding to some undefined hypothetical opponents somewhere who do in fact hold the views he claimed, you’re not being honest.
Wrong. Being unfalsifiable does not make and argument true.
[7] some senators opposing him were “not interested in the security of the American people.†[8] In reality, Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Bush himself first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual civil service protections
First of all, [7] is an opinion, so I don’t understand why it’s presented as a straw man argument. But more importantly, the original Bush quote is based on the Democrats’ concerns over civil service protections: “Bush in New Jersey on Monday: ‘But the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.’” -from a very lengthy critique of the original reporting of the statement, which includes this bit:
[5] Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters.
Isn’t that called “politics”? I am outraged at his politicization of politics. Politics is no place for politics.
You should read through the comments, major Democratic figures holding those views have been pointed out.
Boy, you’re selectively literal in your interpretations. Single payer health care is not the same as the government being the “decider” of health care (whatever that’s supposed to mean). Please link to where Murtha said the Iraq war was “not worth another dime or another day.â€Â
Sorry, your word games aren’t worth anything to me.
I saw. Supporting single payer health care is not the same as advocating the government as the “decider” of health care. Advocating withdrawal Iraq is not the same as saying “not another dime or another day”.
Murtha called for immediate withdrawl, which actually does mean “not another dime or another day”.
You can’t use the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy, tb, when the person making the argument is:
1) An authority on the subject
AND
2) Backs up his argument with, ummm, REAL logic.
I think you’ve invented a new fallacy, tb, the “improper use of logical fallacies to prove your point.” Congratulations!!!
[comment removed by mutual agreement; I initially linked the wrong story to #16; the link has been fixed]
??? Really!
Oh, thank you. If you actually read my posts you would notice that the only place I mentioned it was when he was bragging about his credentials.
tb –
You are unbelieveable! What I am always in awe of is the fact that lefties like you have absolutely NO use for facts. History and human nature are for losers, aren’t they? You are smarter than the billions of people who have preceded you in this world, aren’t you? It’s just so simple that generations of human beings have missed the truth you avail. Right? How annoyingly simple of the rest of us to have missed your inspired dogma.
Sack the rich, and give it to useless whiners. What a concept! If you wish to see the results, you need only to look at the Soviet Union. Or was that before your time? Or maybe you are just smarter than EVERY OTHER PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD who has advocated Socialism? Yeah. I think that’s it! How could so many generations of humankind have been so fucking stupid? tb has the answer! “Gimme, gimme, gimme, you rich pricks!!”
Hopefully, you will grow up some day – before you (and the rest of us) reap what you are attempting to sow.
You’re completely unhinged. No mainstream liberal in America advocates that.
I remember hearing something about some people having to have money taken away from them and given to others…some New York Seantor or somesuch… meh.