Bush Using Straw - Man Arguments in Speeches - New York Times

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Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:09:56 -0800

[Zepps_News] Bush Using Straw - Man Arguments in Speeches -

New York Times

 

 

 

 

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Bush Using Straw - Man Arguments in Speeches

 

[Zeppnote: this may be the first AP article I've seen that directly

criticizes Putsch]

 

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 18, 2006

 

Filed at 12:53 p.m. ET

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- ''Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude

that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day,''

President Bush said recently.

 

Another time he said, ''Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be

free.''

 

''There are some really decent people,'' the president said earlier

this year, ''who believe that the federal government ought to be the

decider of health care ... for all people.''

 

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such

assertions.

 

When the president starts a sentence with ''some say'' or offers up

what ''some in Washington'' believe, as he is doing more often these

days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

 

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents.

In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance

or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to

their actual position.

 

He typically then says he ''strongly disagrees'' -- conveniently

knocking down a straw man of his own making.

 

Bush routinely is criticized for dressing up events with a too-rosy

glow. But experts in political speech say the straw man device, in

which the president makes himself appear entirely reasonable by

contrast to supposed ''critics,'' is just as problematic.

 

Because the ''some'' often go unnamed, Bush can argue that his

statements are true in an era of blogs and talk radio. Even so,

'''some' suggests a number much larger than is actually out there,''

said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy

Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

 

A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington

University in St. Louis, views it as ''a bizarre kind of double talk''

that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

 

''It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have

arguments with nonexistent people,'' Fields said. ''All politicians

try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is

how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of

stuff.''

 

Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt

legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with

voters.

 

Not long after taking office in 2001, Bush pushed for a new education

testing law and began portraying skeptics as opposed to holding

schools accountable.

 

The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of

measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the

proposal.

 

Campaigning for Republican candidates in the 2002 midterm elections,

the president sought to use the congressional debate over a new

Homeland Security Department against Democrats.

 

He told at least two audiences that some senators opposing him were

''not interested in the security of the American people.'' In reality,

Democrats balked not at creating the department, which Bush himself

first opposed, but at letting agency workers go without the usual

civil service protections.

 

Running for re-election against Sen. John Kerry in 2004, Bush

frequently used some version of this line to paint his Democratic

opponent as weaker in the fight against terrorism: ''My opponent and

others believe this matter is a matter of intelligence and law

enforcement.''

 

The assertion was called a mischaracterization of Kerry's views even

by a Republican, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

 

Straw men have made more frequent appearances in recent months, often

on national security -- once Bush's strong suit with the public but at

the center of some of his difficulties today. Under fire for a

domestic eavesdropping program, a ports-management deal and the rising

violence in Iraq, Bush now sees his approval ratings hovering around

the lowest of his presidency.

 

Said Jamieson, ''You would expect people to do that as they feel more

threatened.''

 

Last fall, the rhetorical tool became popular with Bush when the

debate heated up over when troops would return from Iraq. ''Some say

perhaps we ought to just pull out of Iraq,'' he told GOP supporters in

October, echoing similar lines from other speeches. ''That is

foolhardy policy.''

 

Yet even the speediest plan, as advocated by only a few Democrats,

suggested not an immediate drawdown, but one over six months. Most

Democrats were not even arguing for a specific troop withdrawal timetable.

 

Recently defending his decision to allow the National Security Agency

to monitor without subpoenas the international communications of

Americans suspected of terrorist ties, Bush has suggested that those

who question the program underestimate the terrorist threat.

 

''There's some in America who say, 'Well, this can't be true there are

still people willing to attack,''' Bush said during a January visit to

the NSA.

 

The president has relied on straw men, too, on the topics of taxes and

trade, issues he hopes will work against Democrats in this fall's

congressional elections.

 

Usually without targeting Democrats specifically, Bush has suggested

they are big-spenders who want to raise taxes, because most oppose

extending some of his earlier tax cuts, and protectionists who do not

want to open global markets to American goods, when most oppose

free-trade deals that lack protections for labor and the environment.

 

''Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our

economy from the world,'' he said this month in India, talking about

the migration of U.S. jobs overseas. ''I strongly disagree.''