It seems in politics fallacies of logic are common. Today Senator
Pelosi reach deep into the fallacy bag of tricks and used
Proof by verbosity, sometimes colloquially referred to as
argumentum verbosium - a rhetorical technique that tries to persuade by overwhelming those considering an argument with such a volume of material that the argument sounds plausible, superficially appears to be well-researched, and it is so laborious to untangle and check supporting facts that the argument might be allowed to slide by unchallenged. Chris Matthews favorite when it comes to the President is
Style over substance fallacy: occurs when one emphasizes the way in which the argument is presented, while marginalizing (or outright ignoring) the content of the argument. Several other commonly use fallacies of logic are appeal to the masses (everyone else is doing it) and appeal to higher authority (The Pope does it so it must be good.)
When it comes to President Obama appeal to higher authority is not an option; unless it might be to God. Saying other world leaders are doing something might be a case of appeal to higher authority or appeal to the masses. President
Obama's use of logic is depends on the subject. When it comes to energy, food, climate he uses
Naturalistic fallacy: a fallacy that claims that if something is natural, then it is "good" or "right". Several others use by the President and the administration are:
- Appeal to motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer
- Appeal to novelty: where a proposal is claimed to be superior or better solely because it is new or modern
- Appeal to poverty (argumentum ad lazarum): thinking a conclusion is correct because the speaker is financially poor or incorrect because the speaker is financially wealthy
- Appeal to wealth (argumentum ad crumenam): concluding that a statement is correct because the speaker is rich or that a statement is incorrect because the speaker is poor
When there is no logic for an action one can only resort to defense. The common defense mechanism for both the President and the administration is projection. Claiming the problems currently
haunting the country were inherited, each member of the current administration in fact helped create the problems facing society today. President Obama was a senator and very aware of the problems of today, he voted or did not vote on many issues, he was one of the 50 most senior
representatives of the entire population of the United States as are the list of characters (in one way or another)who surround the President today. Can you really claim George did it all? Your administration have attributed to President Bush all of the problems accumulated over the last several years without
admitting any complicity.
