Friday, October 31, 2008

The Circular Logic of Brawler McCain

From Max Bergman at HuffPo

McCain's Circular Logic Firing Squad

Trying to argue against statements from the McCain campaign is like entering a circular-logic firing squad. Since on any given issue, they aggressively adopt both sides of the argument and position themselves where it is most expedient (ex. immigration, strikes inside of sovereign countries, talking to adversaries, the Future Combat Systems, etc.).

The most recent example of this is defense spending. The McCain campaign emailed out a statement today attacking Obama for associating with Barney Frank who is for cutting defense spending by 25 percent. Randy Scheunemann in the statement seemed very outraged and demanded clarification on Obama's position - which happens to be pretty clear. Obama is going to cut some weapons programs that have been proven to be ineffective, but which likely costs nowhere near 25 percent. The rub is that there is little difference between McCain and Obama on this issue.

(Warning: you are about to enter the circular logic firing squad.)

McCain has long said he would cut defense spending, this is a position he maintains today. Obama has also said he will cut defense spending. But McCain opposses Obama and therefore attacks Obama today for having the same position that he has. So it is not that McCain was for cutting defense spending before he was against it. It is that McCain is simulataneously both for and against cutting defense spending. So to paraphrase his position: McCain is for cutting spending, but McCain is against Obama cutting defense spending, so when Obama is for cutting, McCain is for increasing (except he's still for cutting). Clear


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