The Straw Man and McBush Hypocrisy

Posted by: AZBlueMeanie:

Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI), is credited with the bipartisan entreaty that "politics stops at the water’s edge" in American foreign policy.

Of course, members of Congress and even former presidents of both political parties in recent decades have departed from Vandenberg’s entreaty.

Never before has a sitting president, the titular head of the United States government, while on an official state visit, before a session of the elected government of a sovereign state, inserted into a formal state speech a partisan political campaign attack meant for domestic political consumption. 

Patrick Buchanan, the uber conservative political commentator for MSNBC (and frequent author on the presidency) commented that for a sitting president to make this kind of statement while abroad about the other party’s presumptive nominee, is unprecedented.  I will take Pat at his word for historical context.

For President Bush to draw an historically false analogy by comparing the appeasement of Adolph Hitler by European governments in the Munich Agreement of 1938 (permitting German annexation of Chekoslovakia’s Sudetenland) with diplomacy and negotiation with Iran before the Israeli Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence was beyond the pale.  Bush embarrassed Americans with his petty politicking.

Following is the offensive passage from the official White House transcript of Bush’s speech President Bush Addresses Members of the Knesset:

"There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

"Some seem to believe…"  "Some people say…"  Anytime you hear President Bush begin a sentence with this phrase, you can be certain that what follows is a Straw Man fallacy.

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
3. Person B attacks position Y.
4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself.  Fallacy: Straw Man

President Bush has utilized this dishonest and misleading rhetorical technique repeatedly throughout his administration, often to great effect when it is repeated by a servile media.

President Bush does not tell you, of course, that "some people" who want to engage in diplomacy and negotiation with Iran and other "state sponsors of terrorism" are none other than members of Bush’s own administration.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a speech to the American Academy of Diplomacy just the day before Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure – washingtonpost.com said that:

"We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

* * *

"[M]y personal view would be we ought to look for ways outside of government to open up the channels and get more of a flow of people back and forth." Noting that "a fair number" of Iranians regularly visit the United States, he said, "We ought to increase the flow the other way . . . of Americans" visiting Iran."

Secretary Gates publicly favored engagement with Iran before taking his current job in late 2006. In 2004, he co-authored a Council on Foreign Relations report titled "Iran: Time for a New Approach."  Gates was also a member of the bipartisan 2006 Iraq Study Group, which advocated reaching out to Iran.

The Bush administration also considers Syria a state sponsor of terrorism.  But Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice met with Syria’s foreign minister Walid al-Moallem in face-to-face talks at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt on May 3, 2007.  Rice Meets Syrian Foreign Minister – New York Times

Secretary Rice also has said “I am prepared to meet my counterpart or an Iranian representative at any time if Iran will suspend its enrichment and reprocessing activities."  Secretary Rice said the U.S. would hold direct talks with Iran if Tehran suspended its nuclear program.  Rice: Direct Iran talks, with conditions – Iran- msnbc.com

The Bush administration previously negotiated an agreement with "state sponsor of terrorism" Libya, and is presently engaged in negotiations with the repressive regime of North Korea.  The repressive regimes of Pakistan (home to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda) and Saudi Arabia (home to 15 of the 19 hijackers who attacked the U.S. on 9/11) are considered "allies" by the Bush administration.

It is rank hypocrisy to suggest that diplomacy and negotiation with these governments is tantamount to Nazi appeasement – it doesn’t even make sense – when the Bush administration itself is currently engaged in ongoing diplomacy and negotiation with these governments.

It is true that president bush did not directly mention Sen. Barack Obama in his remarks, and the White House later issued a denial that that was Bush’s intent.  But as Dam Froomkin at the Washington Post notes, this is a ludicrous denial.  Dan Froomkin – A Ludicrous Denial – washingtonpost.com  Froomkin confirmed from several reporters that White House aides privately acknowledged the remarks were aimed at Barack Obama and others in his party.

It was more hypocritical and cynical for senator "straight talk express" to directly apply Bush’s "ambiguous" comments to Obama and to agree with Bush that Obama is somehow a Nazi appeaser.

Earlier in the day, Sen. John McCain delivered his Utopian "I have a dream" speech of what the U.S. might look like in 2013 after a McCain presidency.  From the official transcript of his speech at John McCain 2008 – John McCain for President, McCain said the following:

"For too long, now, Washington has been consumed by a hyper-partisanship that treats every serious challenge facing us as an opportunity to trade insults; disparage each other’s motives; and fight about the next election. For all the problems we face, if you ask Americans what frustrates them most about Washington, they will tell you they don’t think we’re capable of serving the public interest before our personal and partisan ambitions; that we fight for ourselves and not for them. Americans are sick of it, and they have every right to be.

* * *

Their patience is at an end for politicians who value ambition over principle, and for partisanship that is less a contest of ideas than an uncivil brawl over the spoils of power. They want to change not only the policies and institutions that have failed the American people, but the political culture that produced them.

* * *

I’m not interested in partisanship that serves no other purpose than to gain a temporary advantage over our opponents. This mindless, paralyzing rancor must come to an end.  We belong to different parties, not different countries. We are rivals for the same power. But we are also compatriots. We are fellow Americans, and that shared distinction means more to me than any other association. I intend to prove myself worthy of the office; of our country; and of your respect."

All noble sentiments.  And a lie.  Some time later, Dr. Jekyll reverted to his Mr. Hyde that he described above when the real McCain with whom we are all familiar spoke. 

When asked by a reporter if he thought Obama was an appeaser — the Democratic candidate has said he would be willing to meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran — McCain sidestepped and said, “I think that Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terrorism, that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans, that wants to wipe Israel off the map, who denies the Holocaust. That’s what I think Senator Obama ought to explain to the American people.’’  McCain Agrees With Bushs Remarks on Appeasement – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog

But it was John McCain who had some explaining to do.  James P. Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State during the Clinton administration, published an opinion in the Washington Post today about an interview he had done with McCain in Davos, Switzerland for the British network Sky News’s "World News Tonight" program.  James P. Rubin – Hypocrisy on Hamas – washingtonpost.com

Here is the crucial part of the interview:

I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

McCain answered: "They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

And here is the video of the interview:

Rubin continued, "Even if McCain had not favored doing business with Hamas two years ago, he had no business smearing Barack Obama. But given his stated position then, it is either the height of hypocrisy or a case of political amnesia for McCain to inject Hamas into the American election.

McCain has responded to Rubin with a highly legalistic parsing of his words: "I made it very clear, at that time, before and after, that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations, that Hamas would have to abandon their terrorism, their advocacy to the extermination of the state of Israel, and be willing to negotiate in a way that recognizes the right of the state of Israel and abandons their terrorist position and advocacy."  Democrats accuse McCain of hypocrisy on Hamas – washingtonpost.com

There is no disagreement, even from the McCain campaign, that Sen. Obama has never stated that he supports engagement with terrorist organizations like Hamas. 

What Bush and McCain are doing is denying the sovereignty of governments like Iran and attempting to equate them with being a terrorist organization.  There are a number of terrible governments in this world but that does not render them a "terrorist organization."  If John McCain shares this same simplistic black and white view of good and evil in this world as George Bush, then he is as naive and foolish as Bush.  And just as dangerous.