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An American presidential candidate travels to the very center of Europe and draws a huge cheering crowd. George W. Bush obviously could never do that. Nor could John McCain. For the many Americans sick to death of eight years of confrontation and quarrelling with friends and allies, Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin presented an exciting and hopeful picture. This is how things should be! It was a great moment — so long as you viewed it with the sound off. But if you listened to the speech, you heard an ominous and disturbing statement, one that raises the same unsettling...

Free-Trade Agreements Members of Congress aren't going to push here while the election's in play, especially since the presidential candidates, particularly the Democrats, have pledged to protect U.S. workers from foreign competition. Earlier this month, Congress tabled a Bush-negotiated free-trade deal with Colombia. Agreements with Korea and Panama are also on hold. Renewable-Energy Tax Credits Several times during the last year, some members of Congress have tried unsuccessfully to give tax breaks to producers of wind and solar energy, often while raising taxes on Big Oil. Few dispute the need for cleaner energy, but there's little chance anyone's going to...

Handsome, intelligent, charismatic, blessed with a golden tongue, and irresistible to his besotted followers, Elmer Gantry – the title character of Sinclair Lewis’s 1927 novel – inspired his supporters to swoon, indeed faint, at his seductive oratory. He told them they were “sinners,” then gave them “hope” that they could “change” if they would only follow his path to redemption. As it turned out, Gantry was a fraud – a sinner himself – ultimately exposed and discredited. “That’s not fair!” liberals protest. “Gantry was fictional.” True, but he is a character that resonated with the reading public because he was...

Much is being made of Barack Obama’s oratory skills. True, he is quite good when it comes to captivating a crowd of sycophants and this includes the lemmings in the mainstream media. But if words matter, as Obama (and surreptitiously Duval Patrick) claims they do, then we must acknowledge that in this case words do make the man, in this case Mr. Obama must be judged in his words and in the deeds that back-up those words. Ironically, I agree with Mr. Obama when he says that words matter. One of the harshest criticisms I have had of the Bush...

-- snip --Maybe if Obama wraps up the Democratic nomination in the next few weeks, he’ll give all of us a better idea of what he’d really like to do as president. We can only hope so. Another eight months of soaring but empty rhetoric about bringing people together and bringing about change will leave most of America brain-dead.

Sometime before Barack Obama's strong showing on Super Tuesday, the Washington Post observed that the senator had been campaigning across this great land on a "platform of hope and change." Whether or not the Post was being arch, they had it about right. Obama rarely speaks about policy specifics; "hope" and "change" are the two dominant messages he preaches on the stump. But he has two secondary themes: "straight talk" and "unity." They don't receive nearly as much attention: Perhaps because an examination of them shows Obama to be a somewhat conventional political figure. During the course of his standard...

It seems to me that we are getting a lot of new members and the following may be helpful to them. Live in a solid "red" state and when anybody complains about some asinine law in their blue state, tell them to "just move from there". The simplistic solution is always the best one. Refer to California as Californicate or Kalifornia. The people's republic of (insert state name here) is always good. When an article appears about something negative happening in public schools, proudly proclaim that all your kids are home schooled and geniuses to boot. Extra points if you...

Howard Kurtz on CNN's "Reliable Sources" [http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/reliable.sources/] Nov. 04 07 9:20 AM: I saw some posting on your 'Going off the bus' blog, it tries very hard to refute the claim that Obama is not experienced [as Hillary is], so, Is it not a [very] liberal blog? Jay Rosen, 'I am sorry, I couldn't understand your question"... It's also a "schtick"-trick in order to buy some time before answering an off guard question.

HOW TO ARGUE EFFECTIVELY I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules: DRINK LIQUOR Suppose you are at a party and some hotshot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about. If you're drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you'll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance,...

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Welcome to Hannity & Colmes . I'm Alan Colmes. Sean reporting tonight from Naples, Florida. Good evening, Sean.SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Good evening, Alan.COLMES: We start tonight with a follow-up to a segment we told you about on Tuesday night's show. A documentary on British television called "Undercover Mosque" exposes the radical rhetoric of some Muslim clerics in London. We have clips we've shown you, and some of them have caused quite a stir. So tonight we have more of these outrageous scenes in this documentary.(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNOUNCER: Money from Saudis has reached some of the best known...

WASHINGTON - President Bush promised a diplomatic offensive to win support for Iraq from Middle Eastern countries that, if anything, have become more hostile to U.S. policy in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's execution. In doses of rhetoric hard to square with facts in the region, Bush portrayed the ordinary people of the Middle East as being behind U.S. goals in Iraq, in his speech to the nation Wednesday night. And he declared the need to address Iran's and Syria's support for insurgents, without acknowledging his refusal to engage either country diplomatically, as many U.S. allies and the Iraq Study Group...

In any war, good intelligence is critical. It's difficult to defeat an enemy if you don't know what the enemy is planning to do. Yet, more than five years into the long war against terrorism, we still don't even know exactly how many enemy fighters we're up against. The recent leak of a portion of the National Intelligence Estimate led to newspaper headlines proclaiming that the war on terror is "creating more terrorists" than it's getting rid of. Then, when more of the estimate was declassified, many were left wondering, "How would we know that, and what does it mean?"...

In Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography, an appropriate text for the Fourth of July weekend, he discusses his methods of persuading others. What follows is excerpted from one very large paragraph: ... the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words "certainly," "undoubtedly," or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, "I conceive" or "apprehend" a thing to be so and so; "it appears to me," or "I should think" it so or so, for such and such reasons; or...

“GIDDY-OLOGY” I have absolutely nothing against gay people. They have their lifestyle and I have mine. I’m perfectly willing to leave it at that , but it appears some gays – and their new allies on the Left – have created a whole new Gay Ideology ( I call it “Giddy-ology”) to which , they insist , all must subscribe. Those who don’t accept Giddy-ology at face value are said to be “in denial” , mean –spirited and divisive , hypocrites concealing their own sexual identity problems , troglodites , religious fanatics , prudes, right wing agitators, etc., etc., etc,...

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's success in producing enriched uranium for the first time may have increased national pride, but hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is annoying predecessors by claiming the achievement in his name alone. And others, including some among the president's supporters, worry his tough rhetoric is intensifying international anxiety over the nuclear program and worsening the country's isolation. On Tuesday, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran successfully enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a significant step toward the large-scale production of a material that can be used to fuel nuclear reactors for generating electricity — or to build atomic bombs. Iran insists...

In 2006, some sixty years after the beginning of the dumbing down of the citizenry by an ever-expanding out of control federal government, there should be a new battle cry for the election season..."Vote them all out". As I have stated previously, I have never understood the term 'election year politics', but so far in 2006, I am getting a full dose of that understanding, and I have to say, if this type of rhetoric is business as usual in an election year, then yes, I would have to say vote them all out.

Up until recently, the New York senator has been under fire from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party for refusing to join the call for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and for her finely modulated criticism of President Bush. But there is a new tough-talking Clinton these days. At a Harlem church on Martin Luther King Day, she said that Bush's presidency would "go down in history as one of the worst" and that the GOP-controlled House "has been run like a plantation." In a post-New Year's Day thank-you note to donors, Clinton assured them she would fight for...

The President addressed the nation tonight, and it was probably his best teleprompter delivery. He was much more animated and realistic as he spoke into the camera than he normally is. Personally, I'd prefer that he address the nation in front of a crowd, because that's when he's at his best, but it's tradition. He made a good case for staying the course in Iraq. This is basically the same thing he usually says. He was a little tougher on the dems than normal, but barely. As is too often the case lately, the speech left me wanting more. I'd...

Inevitably, President Bush’s itemization of means by which to diminish fuel consumption led to derision. The single most common rhetorical device in all argumentation is the invocation of Alternative Uses. I became starkly conscious of this thought-burr in vivid circumstances. I was with James Dickey in Florida. We were guests of the United States government, invited to ogle the capsule with astronauts headed for the moon. It was very cold and still dark when the moon-bound streak of fire shot up from the launch pad. Dickey the poet was frozen in awe and admiration. At breakfast he threatened to break...

Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said Monday that Michael Brown's resignation as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency would not be enough to stem the tidal wave of criticism leveled at the Bush administration over its handling of the Hurricane Katrina crisis. Brown's departure, Landrieu said, "will not alone solve all the problems that plagued the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina and the devastating floods that followed the levee breaches." In a statement posted to her Web site, the Louisiana democrat insisted that the Bush White House still needed to be held responsible. "The people of our nation, and...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 17, 2005 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today dismissed rhetoric that the United States has lowered its expectations in Iraq. Speaking with Matt Lauer in Baghdad, Iraq, on NBC's "Today" program, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers blamed the rhetoric on people hoping to expose a rift between military leaders in Iraq and officials in Washington. Emphasizing that plans in Iraq are "on track," the United States' top military officer said those who say otherwise are "are trying to find some divide between the military leadership over here and the folks back in Washington...

Refrains of the School Critics Behind the rhetoric lies a contempt in some quarters for the work of public educators BY SUSAN OHANIAN George Packer, a New Yorker staff writer, points to the danger of clarity, observing that seemingly simple and tough-minded words blow out as much smoke as the jargon of the Pentagon of decades past. Nowhere is this smoke thicker and trickier than in the lingo the corporate-politico-media squad uses when talking about public schools. At first glance, their talk seems plain and to the point: failing schools, caring about education and education as war. In contrast, education...

A funny thing happened on the way to the nation’s highest forum last week. After Harry Reid attempted to use the well of the U.S. Senate to advance his party’s frivolous attempt at ousting Karl Rove for outting Joe Wilson’s wife, GOP leaders actually fought back. After four years of quietly beating the minority to a pulp behind the scenes and at the ballot box, Bill Frist and company exhibited a rare public display of political payback. Amid the undulating and ever-changing accusations of Republican skullduggery, the liberal left--ever reliant on its faithful media wing--has finally turned its attention away...

While some ends may justify some means, in very extreme circumstances, it is still unavoidable that the means we choose will inevitably also transform, to some extent, the ends we achieve. So, personally, I normally overwhelmingly prefer civil means and civil discourse to their uncivil twins. For the United States, similarly, I believe civil means and civil discourse has served us most well in building a peaceful, prosperous union. I have faith that most of the American people feel likewise. A recent poll, from Democrat electoral consultants Democracy Corps, shows a stable attachment to Republicans since 2004 (43 percent), but...

Several former members of Congress say that Washington's political climate has become so hostile and poisonous over the past decade that it is undermining the government's ability to deal with major problems facing the country. Republicans and Democrats, they say that the level of political dialogue is the worst they have seen in many years, driven in large part by Democratic officials frustrated by a decade of political losses and the incendiary charges made by both parties to get their message heard above the din. Timothy Roemer, the former Democratic congressman from Indiana, agrees. "There is not only a poisonous...

Dean has said Republicans never made an honest living in their lives and House majority leader Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence. DeLay has not been accused of any crime. Dean ''doesn't speak for me with that kind of rhetoric, and I don't think he speaks for the majority of Democrats," Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday on ABC's ''This Week." While discussing the hardship of working Americans standing in long lines to vote, Dean said Thursday, ''Republicans, I guess, can do that because a...

Voters animated by moral and religious values made a difference in the last election, returning Republican George W. Bush to the White House. Some say they made the decisive difference. So, it's not surprising to find Democrats looking to make inroads with these voters. But it is amusing. It began during the last campaign. The Washington Post reported last October that Democratic nominee John Kerry was "evolving" from someone "reluctant to discuss faith in the public square into a Democratic preacher of sorts." Yet it is President Bush who finds himself regularly accused of mixing religion and politics. There are...

Thursday, January 27, 2005 Health Care in the U.S. In watching the Health Care Conference live on C-span 2 this morning, I listened as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton brought up excellent points regarding proposed healthcare reform, and reforms already in place and scheduled to take effect January of 2006. I couldn't help but wonder, however, if her words were for the occassion, or if she was sincere. Hard to tell about her - being a Democrat and all. Hopefully she wasn't considering her party affiliations when she wrote her speech. She spoke of the ways in which prescription coverage will...

Authors, columnists, and readers throughout the internet alternative media are talking non-stop about the EMPIRE. Some of them like Israel Shamir (in his today's article) mention America as the center of the Empire and the Jews as its main supporters who control its financial institutions and its media. Uri Avnery earlier (also at Al-Jazeerah) mentioned the power of American Jews and their control over the US society and government. Mike Whitney, also today, linked the falling of the dollar with the New World Order which is bankrupting nations, including the US, for the benefit of a handful of bankers and...

AMSTERDAM — The radicalisation of young Muslims is partly caused by the negative way Islam is being talked about in the Netherlands, the head of the security service AIVD has claimed. Sybrand van Hulst made the suggestion during an interview with television current affairs programme Zembla on Wednesday night. Van Hulst's organisation is leading the investigation into the activities of extremists in the Netherlands and is deeply involved in the arrest and trial of 12 young Muslims said to be part of a terrorist network called the Hofstadgroep. But he did not specify who he was referring too as being...

The Way of the Whigs Geoff Metcalf There may be a place for partisanship … but NOT in the middle of a war; NOT in the wake of historic elections of representative government in: - Afghanistan - Ukraine - Iraq - and even municipal elections in Saudi Arabia Now is NOT the time to focus on the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ acrimonious petty whizzing match. Sycophant democrats are still so wrapped around partisanship, they are incapable of recognizing the self-destruction they are fueling. The river ‘Denial’ runs wide and deep. The ‘leaders’ of the party (Kennedy, Reid, Pelosi, Biden, Kerry et...

You have got to love the ideologues on the progressive left. One day after the historic election in Iraq, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid staged a preemptive State of the Union 'presponse'. Fears are that not too many people will stay tuned to hear the rebuttal allotted to the opposing party after the President's address. They are probably correct that few people will still be listening and chances are that if they stay tuned, they will drown out the mindless repetitive nonsense that has become the message of the Democratic party. Reid, today suggested that we did not need a...

The most heartening language trend of 2004 was the revival of the old-fashioned insult. When MSNBC's Chris Matthews, sitting in the safety of his studio, had some tough questions for U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., after Miller's over-the-top keynote address at the Republican National Convention, Miller went all Aaron Burr on him: "I wish I was over there, where I could get a little closer into your face. . . . I wish we lived in the day where you could challenge a person to a duel." Miller was giving away about 20 years and 90 pounds to Matthews. But...

Last week Kofi Annan presided over a UN seminar on "Islamophobia," explaining with a straight face: "When the world is compelled to coin a new term to take account of increasingly widespread bigotry -- that is a sad and troubling development. Such is the case with 'Islamophobia.' The word seems to have emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today, the weight of history and the fallout of recent developments have left many Muslims around the world feeling aggravated and misunderstood, concerned about the erosion of their rights and even fearing for their physical safety." The focus, not unexpectedly,...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As a candidate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to illuminate the inner workings of Sacramento the way klieg lights bring sunshine to a movie set. No more back-room handshakes and whispers, no more money-for-favors legislating. "I will work to reform government by bringing openness and full disclosure to public business," the governor said on his inauguration day. As the former Hollywood actor marks his first 12 months in office Wednesday, his plan to usher in a new era of transparency at the statehouse remains a work in progress, even by the account of his staff. While Schwarzenegger...

I'd like to comment on the outrageous observations made by Maureen Dowd last week. Writing from "Murderer's Row" at the nation's leading liberal newspaper, The New York Times, Ms. Dowd flailed out in her post election despair: The president got re-elected by dividing the country along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule. He doesn't want to heal rifts; he wants to bring any riffraff who disagree to heel. W. ran a jihad in America (emphasis mine) so he can fight one in Iraq - drawing a devoted flock of evangelicals, or "values voters," as they call themselves,...

Taking a Deep Look Inside John Kerry's Character Written by Joan Swirsky Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Editor: This article was written in April, but its message is still highly relevant: During his primary campaign, John Kerry traveled on private jets, ate lavish dinners with his ever-present and presumably loving wife, was spared any criticsm from his competitors and was lionized by a leftist media. To recover from the extreme ''stress'' of this routine, the senator took a week's vacation at his wife's multimillion-dollar getaway in Idaho. Every eligible American voter must now ask: If simple campaigning made Kerry snap at...

"From the point of view of the laboring class and the toiling masses of all the peoples of America, the lesser evil would be the defeat of the Bush administration and its army, which oppresses Iraq, Afghanistan, and a number of other peoples of America."Who said this? Are you thinking it's John Kerry? It's no surprise if you would. It does indeed sound very reminiscent of things John Kerry has said. But in acuality, it's a very old quote, and one that's been a bit modified to adapt it to today's circumstances. The original quote, along with the attribution, is...

Were Arnold Schwarzenegger the bold reformer he purports to be, were he truly committed to "blowing up boxes" and obliterating "politics as usual," he would have vetoed Assembly Bill 1077 and signed Assembly Bill 2106. But he did exactly the opposite, thus perpetuating - and even solidifying - two aspects of state government that epitomize its dysfunction. AB 1077, the bill Schwarzenegger signed last month, originally dealt with complaints against police officers, but a few days before the 2004 session ended, Assemblyman Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, did a classic "gut and amend," stripping out the original contents and inserting authorization...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fifty days out from the US presidential election, the rhetoric is becoming nastier between George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites), as the US president's lead appears to be solidifying. Kerry slammed Bush's campaign tactics, saying he "will say anything and do anything to get elected and hold on to power" in an interview in the Monday edition of Time magazine. Kerry was especially angered over a barrage of television ads aimed at discrediting his Vietnam War service, which are widely credited with the downward slide in his polling numbers. "I think...

On July 29, 2004, in Boston, Senator John Kerry became the Democrat’s official presidential candidate. He celebrated by giving a speech in which his rhetoric battled his record. His record lost. Kerry, who is ranked by the National Journal as the Senate’s most liberal member, presented himself to the nation as someone who has undergone a tremendous transformation. It is as transparent as it is fraudulent. Upon his return from Vietnam, Kerry labeled the war immoral. Now he embraces it as a noble effort. In Boston, speaking of the war on terrorism, Kerry said, “As president, I will wage this...

Class Warfare: Democrat John Edwards speaks with great passion about "two Americas." But when it comes to economics, increasingly there's just one."The truth is, we still live in two different Americas: one for people who have lived the American Dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans who work hard and still struggle to make ends meet."Nice rhetoric. And maybe like you, we've heard the "two Americas" thesis so often this season that we're tempted to just accept it and move on. The assertion bears scrutiny, however.New IRS data show there's less to the idea than Democrats...

NAACP: Nonpartisan Branch of the Democratic Party By Andrew L. Jaffee, July 16, 2004 Home   Search   Forum   Terms NAACP Chairman Julian Bond claims his organization is “nonpartisan” while at the same time using vitriolic rhetoric to attack the Bush administration. Why would President Bush wish to speak before the NAACP after the way in which they’ve treated him? Some claim Bush should swallow his pride and speak before the group in the interest of “outreach.” I would argue that Bush has already engaged in more outreach than any other administration in U.S. history: 2001: President George W. Bush appoints: Condoleezza Rice, Assistant...

"John Kerry's embrace of nonproliferation goals and objectives already laid out by President Bush is a welcome step, but his failure to accept the success of negotiations with Libya and his criticism of a multilateral approach to confront the threat from North Korea demonstrate that John Kerry can't help but play politics with national security." -Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman Kerry Promises To Elevate Nonproliferation To The Top Of The Global Agenda – A Step Already Taken By President Bush And His G-8 Colleagues In December 2003, Kerry Promised To "Elevate Non-Proliferation To The Top Of The Global Agenda."...

www.mille.org/journal.html 1 Summer 1999Patriarchy and paranoia thus feed off each other, as we saw in the Gulf War rhetoric that punned on the name Saddam Hussein as Sodomite Hussein while also casting him as the Anti- Christ. And, as war toys suggest, from G.I. Joe dolls to video games like Doom, commodity capitalism fosters paranoid masculinity in the games boys play. ENGENDERING THE MILLENNIUM SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF MILLENNIAL STUDIES THE DEPLOYMENT OF APOCALYPTIC MASCULINITY Lee Quinby, Rochester Institute of Technology I want to focus on the ways that an ostensibly secular yet apocalyptic culture like the United...

The nine Democratic presidential contenders have been swarming all over Iowa for the past several weeks, and we can expect to see even more of them between now and the caucuses on January 19. At diners and county fairs and union halls they will be talking about their views on Iraq, jobs, tax cuts and terrorism. But on one issue of great importance to the people of Iowa -- Social Security -- they are likely to remain curiously quiet. Social Security is not only the largest U.S. government program, accounting for 23 percent of federal spending, it is the largest...

Referring to the fallacy discussions previously posted (and linked below) may be helpful before beginning. Among the following passages, identify those in which there is a fallacy; if there is a fallacy, analyze it, give its kind (whether relevance, or presumption, or ambiguity) and its specific name. Which is more useful, the Sun or the Moon? The Moon is more useful since it gives us light during the night, when it is dark, whereas the Sun shines only in the daytime, when it is light anyway. — GEORGE GAMOW (inscribed in the entry hall of the Hayden Planetarium, New York...

Composition The term "fallacy of composition" is applied to both of two closely related types of invalid argument. The first may be described as reasoning fallaciously from the attributes of the parts of a whole to the attributes of the whole itself. A particularly flagrant example would be to argue that, since every part of a certain machine is light in weight, the machine "as a whole" is light in weight. The error here is manifest when we recognize that a very heavy machine may consist of a very large number of lightweight parts. Not all examples of this kind...

Amphiboly The fallacy of amphiboly occurs when one is arguing from premisses whose formulations are ambiguous because of their grammatical construction. The word "amphiboly" is derived from the Greek, its meaning in essence being "two in a lump," or the "doubleness" of a lump. A statement is amphibolous when its meaning, is indeterminate because of the loose or awkward way in which its words are combined. An amphibolous statement may be true in one interpretation and false in another. When it is stated as premiss with the interpretation that makes it true, and a conclusion is drawn from it on...

FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY The meaning of words or phrases may shift as a result of inattention, or may be deliberately manipulated within the course of an argument. A term may have one sense in a premiss, quite a different sense in the conclusion. When the inference drawn depends upon such changes it is, of course, fallacious. Mistakes of this kind are called "fallacies of ambiguity" or sometimes "sophisms." The deliberate use of such devices is usually crude and readily detected — but at times the ambiguity may be obscure, the error accidental, the fallacy subtle. Five varieties are distinguished in...