Quote: “If there’s any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it’s flawed logic.” President Bush
Figure of Speech: Straw Man, a fallacy of distraction.
The president wants Congress to give American interrogators official permission to … not torture, exactly, but make suspected bad guys feel a whole lot of pain. Colin Powell, the once invincible general and former secretary of state, protests that the White House bill would cause the world “to doubt the moral basis” of the fight against terror and “put our own troops at risk.”
That’s “flawed logic,” Bush retorts, using his own flawed logic. His weapon of rational destruction is the Straw Man, a false argument that’s easier to rebut.
Ignoring Powell’s assertion that torture compromises us and threatens our troops, Bush answers a different one: our interrogation methods make us as bad as the terrorists. Powell never made that comparison, but it’s a neat Straw Man that Bush can beat up.
The president can tell you a thing or two about flawed logic. Whenever rational thought gets in his way, he locks it up and tortures it.
Snappy Answer: “What a great slogan: We’re Not As Bad as the Terrorists.”