In Our Political Rhetoric, Does Logic Matter?

I wonder if it really matters to people whether or not our political leaders communicate in logically valid ways.  Candidates across the political spectrum regularly present us with logically fallacious and specious arguments.  We will debate the issue but seldom do we comment on the validity of the arguments.  I have spent a good part of my life trying to teach university students to argue logically and to recognize specious and fallacious arguments when they occur.  As I observe our political scene I wonder if my efforts were all in vain. 

            A few days ago, I wrote in this blog space a discussion of President Bush’s speech before the Israeli Knesset in which he committed the serious logical fallacy, that logicians call “straw man.”  There were a number of comments on that blog post, but none of them discussed the President’s blatant use of logical fallacy.  

A straw-man fallacy occurs when your opponent has presented an argument that is difficult to refute.  In stead of trying to do so directly, you invent a related argument that your opponent did not make, attribute that argument to your opponent, then make a scathing refutation of the argument you invented. 

            An example of a straw-man argument occurred when Barack Obama argued that John McCain’s vote against a veteran’s benefits bill demonstrated a lack of concern for veterans.  Logically, one can make an argument about the reasons McCain gave for his “no” vote, but Obama did not make that argument.  Instead, he invented a reason for McCain’s vote, then made an argument against that reason. 

            Another example of a straw-man argument happens when McCain says that Obama’s plan for withdrawing troops from Iraq is a defeat in Iraq.  It is easy to refute an plan for defeat, but a calculated withdrawal (which Obama wants) is more difficult to argue against.  So McCain simply says Obama is promoting a defeat than goes on to make an argument against defeat. 

            Perhaps the most common logical fallacy of all is the attack on the person.  Whenever it is difficult to refute an argument made by an opponent, the easiest thing to do is attack, not your opponent’s argument, but your opponent’s character or motivation.  The logicians name for this very common tactic is argumentum ad hominem (argument against the man).

            The most recent form of this extremely common rhetorical strategy is happening right now.  Former Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan has written a memoir of his days in the White House saying that Bush and others used propaganda to sell an unnecessary war in Iraq.  Now this argument has been debated for several years, but McClellan’s accusations, as a member of President Bush’s inner circle, carries a good deal more weight. 

            Instead of trying to refute McClellan’s claims directly, one-by-one, administration officials have been pouring criticism on McClellan’s character, his motivation, and honesty.  I have heard them say things like: “The whole book is a pack of lies,” “I don’t know what happened, but this is not the Scott we all knew,” (perhaps his body has been taken over by aliens) “He’s just trying to sell his book.”   These statements about McClellan may or may not be true, but none say anything about the veracity of McClellan’s claims.  

            The point of this post is not to argue the merits of the issues mentioned here.  Instead, my point here is to demonstrate that we often miss out on an informative discussion of the issues because we (the observers of political arguments) fail to recognize or are willing to overlook logically invalid argument from political candidates and our leaders.