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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (10464)	2/1/2006 10:33:43 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 541695

What was "over-the-top stuff" in this article? "The Bushies are more obsessed with snooping on Americans than fathoming how other cultures think and react." That bit appears early on in the piece and sets the tone. To me, that kind of assertion is a signal that the author is trying to stir the faithful rather than make a cogent argument. First of all, it is extraneous and gratuitous. It serves no useful purpose in demonstrating her point. The argument would have been just as sound without throwing in that particular kitchen sink. And second, it's an exaggeration, a caricature. There is no basis for claiming that the Bushies were "obsessed" with snooping. That suggests that snooping was the objective rather than a byproduct of another objective and it also suggests that they were somehow driven to do it and gratified in the doing. There's no basis for that either.