Flawed Logic: Presidential Press Conference, Sept. 2006

In a September 2006 press conference, President Bush pushed for approval of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which authorized "robust interrogation procedures", among other things. While the bill was being negotiated, Colin Powell, former Secretary of State (and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), wrote a public letter warning against re-interpreting the provisions of the Geneva Convention. So the first question was this:

Press Conference of the President: "Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, former Secretary of State Colin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. If a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State feels this way, don't you think that Americans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whether you're following a flawed strategy?

THE PRESIDENT: If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic. I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective, Terry.

I'd respectfully submit that there are at least 3 flawed arguments in this response:

One could start by commenting on the obvious: the answer had nothing to do with the question! Powell's letter did not make a comparison between those two. Nor did the question imply one. Bush simply changed the subject, adding a red herring that attributed an inflammatory position to the opponent.

We can probably tag this answer as a combination of two techniques: the straw-man argument ("there are some who say that we should not fight the terrorists but send them to therapy instead..."---example courtesy of Karl Rove) and projection ("when did you stop beating your wife?").

Even so, let's examine the straw man argument more closely: One could point out that the American people, compassionate and decent as they might be, are not the same thing as the American government. I am sure that many Americans would not approve of the "interrogation techniques" the bill espouses --- that is, if they could find out what those techniques actually are.

One might also ask, what peoples would not like to think of themselves as "good and decent"?

Finally, it might be true that there is, in fact, no comparison; but even if we grant that the terrorists are orders of magnitude more despicable, this does not automatically mean that what the bill proposes is automatically moral and good.

The headline in many newspapers the next day was something like: "Bush accuses critics of using flawed logic"---without any actual analysis of the argument, or lack thereof. One step closer to Paul Krugman's observation, that if W said that the earth was flat, the headline would be, "Shape of the Earth: Views Differ".

Keith Olberman focused on the line: "It is unaccceptable to think ...". This being an impromptu answer, I would play down the significance of this unfortunate prefix. However, the larger point is this: perhaps we should think, if only a little, about what the moral basis is, and whether currrent methods and approaches are appropriate?

In the context of Powell's statement, given Powell's experience, and his role in this very same administration, perhaps some thinking and nuance would be called for. I wonder if Powell has publicly reacted to this exchange?