alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

November 30, 2005

Tortured Logic

by kim @ 4:50 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

I was reading this Charlie Gibson interview when I came across Porter Goss’s description of torture:

And I quote:

“GOSS: Well, I define torture probably the way most people would — in the eye of the beholder. What we do does not come close because torture in terms of inflicting pain or something like that, physical pain or causing a disability, those kinds of things that probably would be a common definition for most Americans, sort of you know it when you see it, we don’t do that because it doesn’t get what you want. We do debriefings because debriefings are the nature of our business, is to get information. We want accurate information and we want to make sure that we have professional people doing that work, and we do all that, and we do it in a way that does not involve torture because torture is counterproductive.”

End quote. “Wow,” I thought. “I’ve never seen such a dense collection of faulty rhetoric in one place. Then I read this excerpt from today’s Bush speech:

“Some critics continue to assert that we have no plan in Iraq except to, quote, ‘Stay the course.’

“If by ‘Stay the course,’ they mean, ‘We will not allow the terrorists to break our will,’ they’re right.

“If by ‘Stay the course,’ they mean, ‘We will not permit Al Qaida to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban, a safe haven for terrorism and a launching pad for attacks on America,’ they’re right, as well.

“If by ‘Stay the course,’ they mean that we’re not learning from our experiences or adjusting our tactics to meet the challenges on the ground, then they’re flat wrong.”

Bush is using different techniques from Goss, but still, the sheer density of faulty rhetoric is astounding.

This site lists the common methods of abusing logic. See how many you can find in a typical administration speech. (short answer: lots)

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