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Sunday, July 15, 2018

Changing the Argument -- An Old Style Obama Straw Man

One thing at which Barack Obama was a master is the creation of a straw man argument.  Simply put, Obama frequently didn't argue against the points being made by the other side.  Instead, he changed their argument to something else and argued against the new version.  For example, when ISIS first appeared on the scene, there were calls in Washington, particularly from Republicans, to take these new terrorists seriously.  When president Obama was asked about this, he didn't actually respond.  Instead, he said that some believe that ISIS would threaten the future of Iraq and the region.  He then went on to say that ISIS was just the "jayvee" team.  They were not going to bring down Iraq or any other country.  Of course, the Republicans at that time weren't arguing that ISIS would bring down Iraq; they just wanted there to be a coherent American response to this new terror group.  Obama did nothing and justified that by talking about an argument no one was making. 

Today, the Democrats are trying to use that straw man argument style once again.  This time the issue is the meaning of the indictments just brought by the special prosecutor against a bunch of Russians for allegedly hacking the DNC and the Clinton campaign.  The target is the argument by President Trump that the investigation into supposed collusion by his campaign with Russia against the Clinton campaign is a "witch hunt".  The Democrats and many media pundits aligned with the Democrats are pushing the idea that the indictment means that the Mueller probe cannot be a witch hunt because Mueller found that the DNC was hacked by Russians and got indictments against those Russians.

But think about this for a moment.  What was the witch hunt that the President complained about?  President Trump has said repeatedly that there was no collusion and that looking for collusion is a witch hunt.  Notice that Trump doesn't say that there was no hacking of the DNC.  He never said that.  In fact, the whole world knows that internal information from the DNC was published in 2016.  Right before the Democrat convention, emails were published by Wikileaks that showed that the DNC and Hillary Clinton had worked together to rig the primaries and caucuses in 2016 to guarantee that Hillary would get the nomination over Bernie Sanders.  No sane person argues that looking for those who got this information from the DNC is a witch hunt.  Of course, that is what the new indictments are all about.  The Russians allegedly hacked the DNC.

But notice what the indictments don't discuss.  They don't mention any knowing involvement by Americans in this mess.  They don't mention collusion by Americans in the hacking effort.  They certainly don't mention any involvement by President Trump.  In other words, the indictments have nothing to do with collusion.  When the President calls the investigation into supposed collusion a witch hunt, those statements are unaffected by the indictment.

There is no reason to accept the straw man arguments now being pushed by the Dems and the media.  These indictments don't change a thing.  The Mueller probe of collusion was a witch hunt and it remains a witch hunt. 

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