NYT *exposes* Obama's strawman trick ...... with the help of William Safire

[underpants]

Thanks Old Grey Lady for coming through in the clutch :sarcasm: .... 6 years too late to stop this specific trick from being used to START A WAR but hey better later than never huh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us/politics/24straw.html?hpw

Some Obama Enemies Are Made Totally of Straw

WASHINGTON — Democrats often complained about President George W. Bush’s frequent use of a rhetorical device as old as rhetoric itself: creating the illusion of refuting an opponent’s argument by mischaracterizing it and then knocking down that mischaracterization.

Now that there is a new team at the White House, guess who is knocking down straw men left and right? To listen to President Obama, a veritable army of naysayers has invaded Washington, urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country.

“Here’s the trick: Take your opponent’s argument to a ridiculous extreme, and then attack the extremists,” said William Safire, the former presidential speechwriter who writes the “On Language” column for The New York Times Magazine. “That leaves the opponent to sputter defensively, ‘But I never said that.’ ”

The telltale indicators that a straw man trick is on the way are the introductory words “there are those who say” or “some say.”

“In strawmanese, you never specify who ‘those who’ are,” Mr. Safire said. “They are the hollow scarecrows you set up to knock down.”

Jason DeSanto, a Democratic speechwriter and lecturer at Northwestern University, said Mr. Obama’s rhetorical device reflected his search for common ground among foes. “Some might say he pushes the various poles of the argument too far to the left and the right to find a middle ground,” Mr. DeSanto said. “It does project his own world view, but it can make him appear more reasonable.”

[Teaser]

1. Uh, here on the intarwebz, we've understood strawmen since forever

and we've watched a masterclassman of it in action...President George W. Bush.

[lapfog_1]

2. So, they assert that there aren't REALLY any naysayers in

Washington and all over the airwaves? Everyone is on board with the President's agenda?

Well, alrighty then... I guess I don't have to watch the wall to wall coverage of Dick Cheney, Rush, Hannity, and the teabaggers anymore because the NY Times assures me that they are all figments of my imagination (and Obama's rhetorical punching bag!). Yeah! :sarcasm:

Ah, and btw, The NY TIMES was a leading cheerleader for the war in Iraq. They, as much as the administration, lied us into an unnecessary and illegal war. Let's water board the editors and see what was really behind the army of straw men they propped up for the Bush / Cheney criminal enterprise.

[underpants]

4. Yep-they couldn't have had this war without the NYT

Whether we like it or not if it above the fold on the NYT or WaPo in the morning it leads on the nightly news that night and throughout the day...unless something huge happens during the day.

The NYT (editors specifically) sat and watched massive anti-war demonstrations and barely reported on them.
They gave the voices of the anti-war movement almost no coverage
People weren't allowed to know how clearly tragic this decision was and, most importantly, that it might be okay to have a few questions about it

at the same time "by Judith Miller" ran above the fold regularly including the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/WHIG "leaks" that they cited that morning on the Sunday news shows.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. We wouldn't have had Bush's second term either if they hadn't suppressed their own wiretap story. n

[underpants]

12. If they were in the real world

the Bush administration would have been effectively OVER when Richard Clarke turned around and apologized to the families for 9/11
:patriot:

[asphalt.jungle]

15. John King was just asking Sen Dorgan this morning

if Pres Obama is doing too much.

so I'm obviously hearing things. the NY Times writers live in their own little world.

[geckosfeet]

3. This is such horse shit. CNN and Fixed news talking heads have been doing

this since day one. The msm in general has been doing this to vilify Dems and the liberal agenda for ten years. Fire up any news clip from the bUSh/chaINey era and you will hear it. (Sorry - I have no links)

The telltale indicators that a straw man trick is on the way are the introductory words “there are those who say” or “some say.” “In strawmanese, you never specify who ‘those who’ are,” Mr. Safire said. “They are the hollow scarecrows you set up to knock down.”

He acts like Obama has just invented this. Where has this rotten lying bastard been for the last 8 years?

[babylonsister]

5. Helene Cooper, THE most clueless writer eva. She's

an embarrassment.

[Buzz Clik]

6. It's not the NYT, it's one writer. And he's invented a straw man argument about straw men.

This is my favorite moment:

Now that there is a new team at the White House, guess who is knocking down straw men left and right? To listen to President Obama, a veritable army of naysayers has invaded Washington, urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country.

“There are those who say these plans are too ambitious, that we should be trying to do less, not more,” Mr. Obama told a town-hall-style meeting in Costa Mesa, Calif., on March 18. “Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore.”

Mr. Obama did not specify who, exactly, was saying America should ignore its challenges.

Amazing. Saffire, apparently, feels that all those who interfere need to be ridiculed by name every time Obama makes a speech. Well, William old pal, here's one: Harry Reid. Remember Obama's promise to shut down Gitmo? That funding requires funding, and the Senate killed the funding for the closing Gitmo, and Harry Reid drove in the final coffin nail.

I guess Saffire had nothing else to write about. Not that I blame him -- writing 500 words a day, 4 days week must be real punishing work.

[annabanana]

11. Safire is getting "up there". . .

This lazy attack and his willful amnesia are just symptomatic of a general loss of faculty.

[creeksneakers2]

13. The writer used a strawman.

"To listen to President Obama, a veritable army of naysayers has invaded Washington, urging him to sit on his hands at the White House and do nothing to address any of the economic or national security problems facing the country."

Obama never said that. The writer should follow her own advice.

[NJmaverick]

7. Attacking the President with a false argument is "coming through in the clutch"?

Odd sentiment

[underpants]

8. .

:sarcasm:

[Fovea]

10. You are mis-using the NYT.

Don't you have a bird cage, or some dead fish?

[RDANGELO]

14. How many of the Republicans in Washington don't believe in global warming.

Many of them have no understanding of the problems or the urgency of those problems that are facing the this country: they don't believe in global warming, they think we can drill are way to energy independence. they have no understanding of the policies that set up this economic mess. If an issue does not fit in with there cultural agenda, they have no interest in it.

[Wednesdays]

16. Kicked and rec'd for the irony

Post #13 says it all...

Safire teaches us all about straw men...and then proceeds to build a whopper. :crazy:

And there are millions of readers who eat that shit up like cotton candy.

[BlooInBloo]

17. *yawn*

[dionysus]

18. it's sad that you had to use the sarcasm icon.. man it can be lost on people eh?

:rofl:

[woo me with science]

19. Actually, he DOES do this

repeatedly, as a rhetorical device. In certain situations it is very effective, but I was actually thinking myself that he overdoes it, even before I saw the Safire article.

Obama has a habit in his speeches of trying to come across as the moderate, reasonable voice in a pit of fierce partisanship. If you look at his speeches, he does repeatedly set up the extreme views of the right and the left as strawmen and then places himself in the middle somewhere between them, as a reasonable voice. If I had time to google some of his speeches, I would try to give a bunch of examples, but I am pressed for time here.

The problem with this approach is, first, that it becomes almost a predictable rhetorical trick, thus opening the door to columns like Safire's that will make people disengage when he does it again. The second problem is that he does it even in situations where taking a middle ground is NOT reasonable, and he ends up making caricatures out of his base in order to appeal to the middle. In a recent speech, for example, he tried to stake out a middle ground on abortion which I think unfairly mischaracterized the motives and reasoning of those who favor full choice without lengthy debates about morality and religion.