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Politics : Did Slick Boink Monica? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (12283)	3/26/1998 3:56:00 PM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20981

Excellent article on why the Clintonistas' arguments cannot withstand analysis: -ARIANNA Filed March 23, 1998 Phallacious Logic Kathleen Willey says she was groped by the president in the Oval Office. Kathleen Willey asked Ann Lewis for a job in the Clinton re-election campaign. Therefore, Kathleen Willey was not groped by the president in the Oval Office. Ken Starr is prosecuting the president. Ken Starr is a terrible person. Therefore, the president is an innocent person. Such are the leaps in logic that dominate our post-Monica political conversation. If the debate is ever to move beyond its arrested adolescence, we need a refresher course in elementary logic. Let's start with the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle. Here's how it goes -- straight from the first chapter in my Logic 101 book: "All oaks are trees. All elms are trees. Therefore, all oaks are elms." How is this useful? Well, in Washington these days, there are a lot of people who think all oaks are elms. In fact, perhaps the next edition of that logic textbook can include some more contemporary variations on the theme. To wit: Paula Jones accuses the president of exposing himself and asking for oral sex. Paula Jones has had a sexual past. Therefore, Paula Jones asked for the president to expose himself and offer her the chance to perform oral sex. Linda Tripp recorded conversations she had with her friend Monica Lewinsky. These recordings were illegal and dishonestly obtained. Therefore, what Monica says on the tapes is not true. Monica Lewinsky said that she and the president had oral sex in a study by the Oval Office. Monica Lewinsky told an old boyfriend, "I'm going to the White House to get my presidential kneepads." Therefore, the president and Monica did not have oral sex in a study by the Oval Office. Richard Mellon Scaife has financed publications and operations hostile to the president. Richard Mellon Scaife is a right-wing ideologue who would like to see the president impeached. Therefore, all the evidence against the president -- including Paula Jones', Kathleen Willey's and Monica Lewinsky's -- was created by Richard Mellon Scaife. Had enough? Are you pleading for mercy? If so, why now, and not during most televised discussions of "the president in crisis"? Amazing but true, this manifestly flawed logic is the firepower that's winning the White House's public relations war. Of course, this is not as surprising as it seems at first glance, once you consider that in 1995 similar logic won O.J. Simpson the right to spend the rest of his life on the golf course. In case you've forgotten, it went something like this: Mark Fuhrman believes O.J. is guilty. Mark Fuhrman is guilty of racism and perjury. Therefore, O.J. is innocent. In the current scandals, the finest variations on the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle have been those leveled at Ken Starr -- a man who's been under more pressure from the Clinton White House than Saddam Hussein, only without the brave French and Russians to help plead his case. The only thing that has not been said against Starr is that he's just jealous of the beautiful thing Bill and Monica had together. Yet so successful was the demonizing campaign that in one of the increasingly surrealistic polls, Starr's approval rating had sunk to a microscopic 11 percent. Now, that may mean only 11 percent of the American public has had a class in elementary logic and is therefore able to poke holes in Sidney Blumenthal's infantile reasoning. Or it may mean that most Americans who have a logical bent -- and a life -- have better things to do than spend time on the phone answering strangers' questions about other people's sex lives for nothing. The point is that even if the investigators snooping around Starr's private life had discovered that he acted in a series of gay porno films in the mid-'70s, it would still have nothing -- nada, zero, zilch -- to do with whether the president suborned perjury, obstructed justice or lied under oath. Even if Starr were responsible for the death of Lady Di, "Seinfeld" going off the air and El Nino, it would still have nothing to do with whether the president broke any of the laws of the land he swore to uphold. Should a critical mass of the public finally understand this point, Sidney Blumenthal and James Carville will have to find real jobs. A close look at some recent evidence might speed up the progress toward a more logical discourse. According to the president's own deposition in the Jones case, it is now a matter of fact, and not of leaks, lies, conjecture or gossip, that Gennifer Flowers told the truth and Bill Clinton lied about whether they had had sex. Yet for the last six years, the American public has been bombarded by our oft-illustrated logical fallacy: Gennifer Flowers says she had sex with Bill Clinton. Gennifer Flowers is a lounge singer, a bimbo and a gold digger who sold her story to a tabloid. Therefore, Gennifer Flowers did not have sex with Bill Clinton. But she did. Perhaps the Bill and Gennifer example can replace that of the oaks and elms in adult logic textbooks. ariannaonline.com