Reply #49: Straw Man! [View All]

[Towlie]

"Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," he was asked by a reporter. "If a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former secretary of state feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?"

“If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic,” Bush said. “It's just -- I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.

Huh? Who said anything about a comparison?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200609170002
http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=158059&srvc=home

Of course Keith Olbermann is very correct to criticize Bush's suggestion that certain thoughts are unacceptable. (I was sure he was going to mention "thoughtcrime".) But another very important point is that Bush seemed to imagine an argument that wasn't even there. It was an outrageous straw man if deliberate, and a frightening mental lapse if it wasn't.