Reid’s Rhetorical Roast and Why Washington Needs a Logic Lesson

By way of introduction, Senator Bunning is standing in the way of passing a temporary bill that would keep unemployment and other benefits active for a temporary period of time until a permanent measure can be passed. There was a previous vote for a procedure called PAYGO which would require that any bill that required funding would have to be paid for instead of being passed on to our future, that of our children and that of our grandchildren in the form of deficit spending and greater debt. Most of the drunken sailors and prostitutes in the house and senate agreed, probably out of political expediency, that the PAYGO idea at least gave the appearance of spending restraint and voted in favor. When the temporary bill came up, Bunning held their feet to the fire and invoked the PAYGO requirement. It was not well received. Here was dad taking away the credit cards that had been maxed out. The spoiled teens cried, “have you no heart?”

Because I cannot find a transcript of the exchange, I have included a time line sequence for the events as they occur in the video. Please pause the video when each time point arrives and read the discussion for that time point. Of special note, Reid, compared to Bunning, is a far superior orator, but logic is another matter. Reid is strong on pathos and ethos. If logos were king, Reid would have to be drawn and quartered.

9:10 — Red Herring Fallacy. He is deflecting the argument from whether or not there is a violation of PAYGO to “He made it personal.”

9:32 — Modal Scope Fallacy. The argument is that, “Any bill that receives 70 senate votes must be non-partisan. This bill received 70 votes, therefore this bill is non-partisan.” The problem occurs in the first premise. Bunning just got through explaining that a very partisan bill may get some republican votes, in this case around 9 out of 40, due to a political move by Reid called cloture. The logical problem is the scope of the implied word “any,” and in the definition of non-partisan. In the narrowest scope of non-partisan, one Republican vote is enough to receive the ‘non partisan’ label. In the broadest definition, non-partisan would imply significant (probably better than 50%) buy-in from both parties. Reid obviously chose the narrow scope and in so doing committed the modal scope fallacy.

9:42 — Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc. Reid assumes the cause of the receipt of 70 votes on the mentioned bill is that the “bill will do great things for America.” This one is practically laughable. There are so many political maneuvers and back room (enter the prostitutes) deals in the senate, that a bill may receive 70 votes and only be good for, say, Senator Byrd’s state and bad for the rest of the country, but because Byrd was able to cut deals, a bill passes. For a review of Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc, see the following video.

10:00 — Red Herring. Although Bunning opened the door on this one, Reid is evading the core argument and issue which is adherence to PAYGO.

10:31 — This is not a fallacy, but it is Reid’s second slip in which he starts to call it what it is, ‘partisan,’ then corrects himself.

10:43 — Red Herring. The bill Reid mentions is not the one that Bunning has the PAYGO issue with.

10:58 — Denying the Antecedent. Reid’s argument is, “If Y votes for Z, then Y will want to abide by Z. Bunning did not vote for Z, therefore, Bunning does not want to abide by Z. The form is,

If p then q

Not p, therefore not q.

11:30 — Red Herring. Reid is trying to deflect and distract the matter at hand which is, “Should PAYGO apply to the temporary bill in question?”

11:42 — Straw Man Argument/Red Herring/Poisoning the Well/Tu Quoque. I have to admit the masterful rhetorical Reid move here. For the last 2 – 3 minutes he has set up a straw man argument in an attempt to discredit (well poisoning), by distraction (red herring), by saying that Bunning is a hypocrite too (tu quoque). I did not know until this video just how good Reid is at pathos and ethos. I stand in disgusted awe (akin to discovering a six ft high pile of elephant dung “dude, you gotta see this!”).

11:49 — Another classic rhetorical ploy. Not sure what to call this one…but it works. He just got through calling Bunning a hypocrite then denies doing it.

12:09 — Red Herring. Bunning’s historical facts are not at issue here.

13:25 — Argumentum ad Misericordium/Argumentum ad Superbiam. Bunning is so typical of Republican offerings. The weight of logic is clearly on their side, but the presentations are pins and pokers. He had a great opportunity here to spank Reid and couldn’t or wouldn’t.

14:58 — Bunning undercuts his own argument here. He let Reid distract him from the issue. Here is my recommendation for Bunning, Bunning approaches the podium laughing and clapping. “Nice speech, Senator. You have talked about everything except the issue which is, “Do you plan on honoring your PAYGO vote for this bill or not? Wait, did I say ‘honor?’ I meant to say, will you be able to find the political expediency and enough excuses necessary to ignore PAYGO?”

15:49 — Red Herring

16:16 — Straw Man. Very nice rhetorical move. Reid repositions Bunning’s argument from, “There is a pattern of congressional behavior of passing bills then ignoring them. This one, due to its nature to control spending, will get ignored also. Therefore I will not vote for it.” To, “Bunning has acted as judge, and jury against the Senate by condemning the senators for acting badly in advance of their actions.” Interesting that Bunning was prophetic.

16:34 — Red Herring. What a partisan hack! Although he is right about Clinton and Bush, he just couldn’t resist furthering the deception that, somehow, current democrats care about paying down the debt that they have allowed to explode. I really have to chuckle.

16:56 — Tu Quque

Oh, a world without logical restraint. If it were not so damaging, it would make for great satire.