A Straw Tower for Obie-Won in Kenya

{link » Some Obama Enemies Are Made Totally of Straw}

“‘Here's the trick: Take your opponent's argument to a ridiculous extreme, and then attack the extremists’, said William Safire, the former presidential speechwriter who writes the "On Language" column for The New York Times Magazine. ‘That leaves the opponent to sputter defensively, "But I never said that"’.

The telltale indicators that a straw man trick is on the way are the introductory words "there are those who say" or "some say". ‘In strawmanese, you never specify who "those who" are’, Mr. Safire said. ‘They are the hollow scarecrows you set up to knock down’.”
 — By Helene Cooper, May 23, 2009

{link » Strawman Straw Slam}

“Think that's a strawman argument? I refer you to our president's absurd speech the other day. It's too bad Cooper skipped that, because Obama was playing an astonishing double-reverse strawman game in that one, quite possibly unprecedented in the scurrilous history of American political chicanery, in which he slammed the supposed abandonment of fundamental American values by the prior administration and its supposedly destructive policies, while adopting them as his own — under a thin veneer of better-likedness. I'd call it a brilliant bit of straw footwork, except that the only people he seems to have fooled [are] the national press. Even his own base isn't buying it. And it transcends the traditional, incidental use of strawmen in American political rhetoric. Because in this case, the president has constructed himself a straw tower, and has taken up residence in it.”
 — Jules Crittenden

Post #765 A Straw Tower for Obie-Won in Kenya