Reply from Congressman Emanuel Cleaver concerning OrphanWorksActof 2008

[Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO]

It could also be a reduction to absurdity.
 

Brian Kelsay


________________________________

From: Jeffrey Watts
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:23 AM


Okay I lied again. One _last_ post, sorry.  I had "straw men" on my mind
apparently.  Leo's current sin involving Paris is more a hasty
generalization.

Jeffrey.


On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 1:12 AM, Jeffrey Watts
<jeffrey.w.watts at gmail.com> wrote:



	His Paris Hilton argument is a classic straw man.  He uses her
because most people despise her, and takes a trivial relationship
between otherwise extremely dissimilar things and blows it up into a
side-by-side comparison.   It's the same silly thing you see on McCain's
"celebrity" adverts.   In this case, Paris Hilton is known primarily for
her sex tape, her name, her lack of shame, and her overexposure.  Her
criminal problems were just icing on the cake and fodder for the
gossip-mill.  What's "wrong with her" is not her disregard for the law -
her problems are much much deeper than that.  Thus comparing her with a
complex issue involving MILLIONS of people is flimsy.  If he weren't
trying to use a straw man he wouldn't have selected such an incendiary
subject for his analogy.  As I said, he's not stupid.
	


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